"No, nor no acquaintance! What business is it of your'n, sir, to go hollering in ladies' faces at your age?"
"Well:—but I'll swear if you ain't her, you're somebody else. I know you as well as the town clock"
"Me? If you must know, sir, I'm Mrs. Pettigrew's mother, the
Linendraper's establishment, sir; a-going down for Christmas, sir!"
"Humph!" says Mark: "you see—was sure I knew her—know everybody here. As I said, if she wasn't Mrs. Grove, she was somebody else. Ever in these parts before?"
"Never: but I have heard a good deal of them; and very much charmed with them I am. I have seldom seen a more distinctive specimen of English scenery."
"And how you are improving round here!" said Claude, who knew Mark's weak points, and wanted to draw him out. "Your homesteads seem all new; three fields have been thrown into one, I fancy, over half the farms."
Mark broke out at once on his favourite topic,—"I believe you! I'm making the mare go here in Whitford, without the money too, sometimes. I'm steward now, bailiff—ha! ha! these four years past—to Mrs. Lavington's Irish husband; I wanted him to have a regular agent, a canny Scot, or Yorkshireman. Faith, the poor man couldn't afford it, and so fell back on old Mark. Paddy loves a job, you know. So I've the votes and the fishing, and send him his rents, and manage all the rest pretty much, my own way."
When the name of Lavington was mentioned, Mark observed Stangrave start; and an expression passed over his face difficult to be defined—it seemed to Mark mingled pride and shame. He turned to Claude, and said, in a low voice, but loud enough for Mark to hear,—
"Lavington? Is this their country also? As I am going to visit the graves of my ancestors, I suppose I ought to visit those of hers."
Mark caught the words which he was not intended to.