"I'm afraid it was. But I was as ignorant about it as the babe unborn. I only heard of it on the evening of the day of Roger's departure."
"And that's a week ago, sir. What's kept you quiet ever since?"
"I thought that Roger would tell you himself."
"That shows you've no sons. More than half their life is unknown to their fathers. Why, Osborne there, we live together—that's to say, we have our meals together, and we sleep under the same roof—and yet—Well! well! life is as God has made it. You say it's not an engagement yet? But I wonder what I'm doing? Hoping for my lad's disappointment in the folly he's set his heart on—and just when he's been helping me. Is it a folly, or is it not? I ask you, Gibson, for you must know this girl. She hasn't much money, I suppose?"
"About thirty pounds a year, at my pleasure during her mother's life."
"Whew! It's well he's not Osborne. They'll have to wait. What family is she of? None of 'em in trade, I reckon, from her being so poor?"
"I believe her father was grandson of a certain Sir Gerald Kirkpatrick. Her mother tells me it is an old baronetcy. I know nothing of such things."
"That's something. I do know something of such things, as you are pleased to call them. I like honourable blood."
Mr. Gibson could not help saying, "But I'm afraid that only one-eighth of Cynthia's blood is honourable; I know nothing further of her relations excepting the fact that her father was a curate."
"Professional. That's a step above trade at any rate. How old is she?"