“I assure you, you wrong both yourselves and me. I never—”
“Oh, I 'm certain you never imagined this step. I can well believe that if it were not for advice—not very disinterested, perhaps—you would have still condescended to regard this as your home.”
“If I suspected that this removal would in the least affect the sentiments I entertain for my kind friends here, or in any way alter those I trust they feel for me, I 'd never have adopted, or, having adopted, never execute it.”
“We are really very much to blame, Mr. Cashel,” said Olivia bashfully, “in suffering our feelings to sway you on a matter like this. It was only too kind of you to come here at first; and perhaps even yet you will come occasionally to see us.”
“Yes, Mr. Cashel, Livy is right; we are very selfish in our wishes, and very inconsiderate besides. Your position in the world requires a certain mode of living, a certain class of acquaintances, which are not ours. It is far better, then, that we should resign ourselves to an interruption, than wait for an actual broach of intimacy.”
Cashel was totally at a loss to see how his mere change of residence could possibly imply a whole train of altered feelings and relations, and was about to express his astonishment on that score when Linton's phaeton drove up to the door, according to an appointment they had made the day before, to breakfast with the officers of a regiment quartered a short distance from town.
“There is your friend, Mr. Cashel,” said Miss Kennyfeck, with a marked emphasis on the word. Cashel muttered something about a rendezvous, and took up his hat, when a servant entered to request he would favor Mr. Kennyfeck with a brief interview before going out.
“Are we to see you at dinner to-day?” said Olivia, languidly.
“I hope so. Mrs. Kennyfeck has been kind enough to ask me, and I hope to have the pleasure.”
“Will Mr. Linton give leave?” said Miss Kennyfeck, laughing; and then, seeing a cloud on Cashel's brow, added, “I meant, if you had made no appointment with him.”