‘If not,’ said Owen, smiling, to hide deeper feelings, ‘I reserve to you the pleasure of maintaining me, nursing me, or what not! If my carcase be good for nothing, I hereby make it over to you. And now, Honor, I have not been without thought for you. I can tell you of a better successor for Brooks.’
‘Well!’ she said, almost crossly.
‘Humfrey Charlecote Randolf,’ said Owen, slowly, giving full effect to the two Christian names.
Honor started, gasped, and snatching at the first that occurred
of her objections, exclaimed, ‘But, my dear, he is as much an engineer as yourself.’
‘From necessity, not choice. He farmed till last August.’
‘Canadian farming! Besides, what nonsense to offer a young man, with all the world before him, to be bailiff of this little place.’
‘It would, were he only to stand in Brooks’s position; but if he were the acknowledged heir, as he ought to be—yes, I know I am saying a dreadful thing—but, my good Queen Elizabeth, your Grace would be far wiser to accept Jamie at once than to keep your subjects fretting over your partialities. He will be a worthy Humfrey Charlecote if you catch and pin him down young. He will be worthy any way, but if you let him go levelling and roaming over the world for the best half of his life, this same Holt will lose its charms for him and his heirs for ever.’
‘But—but how can you tell that he would be caught and pinned?’
‘There is a very sufficient pin at the Underwood.’