"My uncle will be so glad to see you;—only, you know, you can't always find him at home. And so will Patience. You are a great favourite with Patience. You have gone down to live in Norfolk,—haven't you?"
"Yes—in Norfolk."
"You have bought an estate there?"
"Just one farm that I look after myself. It's no estate, Miss Bonner;—just a farm-house, with barns and stables, and a horse-pond, and the rest of it." This was by no means a fair account of the place, but it suited him so to speak of it. "My days for having an estate were quickly brought to a close;—were they not?" This he said with a little laugh, and then hated himself for having spoken so foolishly.
"Does that make you unhappy, Mr. Newton?" she asked. He did not answer her at once, and she continued, "I should have thought that you were above being made unhappy by that."
"Such disappointments carry many things with them of which people outside see nothing."
"That is true, no doubt."
"A man may be separated from every friend he has in the world by such a change of circumstances."
"I had not thought of that. I beg your pardon," said she, looking into his face almost imploringly.
"And there may be worse than that," he said. Of course she knew what he meant, but he did not know how much she knew. "It is easy to say that a man should stand up against reverses,—but there are some reverses a man cannot bear without suffering." She had quite made up her mind that the one reverse of which she was thinking should be cured; but she could take no prominent step towards curing it yet. But that some step should be taken sooner or later she was resolved. It might be taken now, indeed, if he would only speak out. But she quite understood that he would not speak out now because that house down in Norfolk was no more than a farm. "But I didn't mean to trouble you with all that nonsense," he said.