‘Miss Honor is glad to see Daisy as tame as ever,’ shouted Humfrey.
‘Ay! ay!’ maundered on the old man; ‘she ain’t done no good of late, and Mr. West and I—us wanted to have fatted her this winter, but the squire, he wouldn’t hear on it, because Miss Honor was such a terrible one for her. Says I, when I hears ’em say so, we shall have another dinner on the la-an, and the last was when the old squire was married, thirty-five years ago come Michaelmas.’
Honora was much disposed to laugh at this freak of the old man’s fancy, but to her surprise Humfrey coloured up, and looked so much out of countenance that a question darted through her mind whether he could have any such step in contemplation, and she began to review the young ladies of the neighbourhood, and to decide on each in turn that it would be intolerable to see her as Humfrey’s wife; more at home at the Holt than herself. She had ample time for contemplation, for he had become very silent, and once or twice the presumptuous idea crossed her that he might be actually about to make her some confidence, but when he at length spoke, very near the house, it was only to say, ‘Honor, I wanted to ask you if you think your father would wish me to ask young Sandbrook here?’
‘Oh! thank you, I am sure he would be glad. You know poor Owen has nowhere to go, since his uncle has behaved so shamefully.’
‘It must have been a great mortification—’
‘To Owen? Of course it was, to be so cast off for his noble purpose.’
‘I was thinking of old Mr. Sandbrook—’
‘Old wretch! I’ve no patience with him!’
‘Just as he has brought this nephew up and hopes to make him useful and rest some of his cares upon him in his old age, to find him flying off upon this fresh course, and disappointing all his hopes.’
‘But it is such a high and grand course, he ought to have rejoiced in it, and Owen is not his son.’