“Peter, Peter,” said Miss Dinah, impatiently, “must I then tell whom you are speaking to?”
Barrington seemed pazzled. He looked from the stranger to his sister, and back again.
She drew near and whispered in his ear: “The son of poor George's dearest friend on earth,—the son of Ormsby Conyers.”
“Of whom?” said Barrington, in a startled and half-angry voice.
“Of Ormsby Conyers.”
Barrington trembled from head to foot; his face, for an instant crimson, became suddenly of an ashy paleness, and his voice shook as he said,—
“I was not—I am not—prepared for this honor. I mean, I could not have expected that Mr. Conyers would have desired—Say this—do this for me, Withering, for I am not equal to it,” said the old man, as, with his hands pressed over his face, he hurried within the house, followed by his sister.
“I cannot make a guess at the explanation my friend has left me to make,” cried Withering, courteously; “but it is plain to see that your name has revived some sorrow connected with the great calamity of his life. You have heard of his son, Colonel Barrington?”
“Yes, and it was because my father had been his dearest friend that Miss Barrington insisted on my remaining here. She told me, over and over again, of the joy her brother would feel on meeting me—”
“Where are you going,—what's the matter?” asked Withering, as a man hurriedly passed out of the house and made for the river.