"Very absurd and unaccountable!" exclaimed Sir Patrick, interrupting himself next day, during a paroxysm of angry whistling, which he had carried on for some time, standing with his back to the fire, in that attitude peculiar to Englishmen, and in which he was said to be the only man who ever looked graceful. "Most extraordinary."
"What?" asked Agnes, with a start of eager curiosity. "What is there which astonishes you so much?"
"That I am the only one of our family who cannot endure to eat roast mutton!" replied he, evidently resolved to balk her inquisitiveness. "This is a teazing and tormenting world, Agnes, where we cannot order everything as we like."
"But what has ruffled the surface of your humor to-day, Pat?" asked Agnes, indifferently. "You seldom treat me to a stage soliloquy!"
"Then, if you must have it, all I can say is this! Here are my two best friends on earth, Wigton and De Crespigny, with a thousand mental, personal, titled, and landed recommendations, each making his proposal, and I cannot give either of them the slightest hopes!"
"Patrick, you must be mad! If they wait long enough, I may perhaps marry both, but at all events I have no intention to refuse either!" replied Agnes, in her most conceited tone. "Are you in jest or in earnest?"
"Why, both! That strange girl, Marion, has given them each a good, round, decided negative. I did not think she had it in her nature to be so positive."
"Impossible!" exclaimed Agnes, with angry vehemence, while her eyes seemed literally striking fire. "This is some ill-natured jest of yours; but Marion understands Captain De Crespigny too well to fall into any such absurd mistake. She knows he is secretly attached to me, though, indeed, that has been no secret for ages past, and Marion never hinted to me that he had an idea of proposing to her."
"No! Marion is exactly the sort of person never to mention what might hurt the feelings of another, especially as you would probably not have believed her; but I had yesterday a point-blank, bona fide, serious, and even solemn proposal to make her from De Crespigny, which I had to decline with all the usual regret, surprise, gratitude, offers of friendship, and so forth. It is a great inconvenience, Agnes, that both your strings should break in this way at once; but Marion is a perfect loadstone for attracting the attentions, the hearts, and the good opinions of all mankind. I have seen both these affairs coming on for some time, and it is really awkward and irritating to be placed in such a predicament with all my friends," continued Sir Patrick, in the tone of an ill-used man, thinking only of his own grievances, while Agnes, feeling herself extinguished at a blow, gazed in his face with a look of pallid amazement. "If Granville could only be sunk to the bottom of the sea," added Sir Patrick, impatiently, "I would not beckon with my finger to bring him up again!"
When a separation is inevitable, those who depart have generally the advantage, in seeing a variety of interesting novelties, to force their attention, and occupy it; but while the thoughts of Mr. Granville reverted continually to Harrowgate, Marion's became now more than ever engrossed with Sir Arthur, whose nerves had been greatly shattered by his recent adventure, and who ardently longed, as soon as his health was in any degree re-established, to be again in the quiet sanctuary of his own home.