"There isn't time now. He'll have to start in May."
"Plenty of time. Trousseaus are now got up by steam, and girls are kept ready to marry at the shortest notice. If I were you I should certainly advise him to take out some healthy young woman, capable of bearing the inclemencies of the Patagonian climate."
"As for that the climate is delicious," said Mrs. Green, who certainly was not led by her guest's manner to suspect the nature of her guest's more recent intentions.
Mounser Green on this afternoon came to Portugal Street before he himself went out to dinner, choosing the hour at which his aunt was wont to adorn herself. "And so you are to be the hero of Patagonia?" said Arabella as she put out her hand to congratulate him on his appointment.
"I don't know about heroism, but it seems that I am to go there," said Mounser with much melancholy in his voice.
"I should have thought you were the last man to leave London willingly."
"Well, yes; I should have said so myself. And I do flatter myself I shall be missed. But what had I before me here? This may lead to something."
"Indeed you will be missed, Mr. Green."
"It's very kind of you to say so."
"Patagonia! It is such a long way off!" Then she began to consider whether he had ever heard of her engagement with the last Minister-elect to that country. That he should know all about Lord Rufford was a matter of course; but what chance could there be for her if he also knew that other affair? "We were intimately acquainted with Mr. Morton in Washington and were surprised that he should have accepted it."