"Buy a cottage?" repeated the vicar. "My dear young lady, you say that in the same voice you might use to tell me your uncle had gone to buy a bun."
"What is a bun?" asked Priscilla.
"A bun?" repeated the vicar bewildered, for nobody had ever asked him that before.
"Oh I know—" said Priscilla quickly, faintly flushing, "it's a thing you eat. Is there a special voice for buns?"
"There is for a thing so—well, so momentous as the buying of a cottage."
"Is it momentous? It seems to me so nice and natural."
She looked up at the vicar and his son, calmly scrutinizing first one and then the other, and they stood looking down at her; and each time her eyes rested on Robin they found his staring at her with the frankest expression of surprise and admiration.
"Pardon me," said the vicar, "if I seem inquisitive, but is it one of the Symford cottages your uncle wishes to buy? I did not know any were for sale."
"It's that one by the gate," said Priscilla, slightly turning her head in its direction.
"Is it for sale? Dear me, I never knew Lady Shuttleworth sell a cottage yet."