"I'm afraid it will make it very dull for your mother,—not seeing her old friends," said Mr. Gibson.
"Mamma won't feel that at all," said Dorothy.
"Mrs. Stanbury, I suppose, will see her own friends at her own house just the same," said Camilla.
"There would be great difficulty in that, when there is a lady who is to remain unknown," said Arabella. "Don't you think so, Mr. Gibson?" Mr. Gibson replied that perhaps there might be a difficulty, but he wasn't sure. The difficulty, he thought, might be got over if the ladies did not always occupy the same room.
"You have never seen Mrs. Trevelyan, have you, Miss Stanbury?" asked Camilla.
"Never."
"She is not an old family friend, then,—or anything of that sort?"
"Oh, dear, no."
"Because," said Arabella, "it is so odd how different people get together sometimes." Then Dorothy explained that Mr. Trevelyan and her brother Hugh had long been friends.
"Oh!—of Mr. Trevelyan," said Camilla. "Then it is he that has sent his wife to Nuncombe, not she that has come there?"