"I cannot give it to you now," said the old man rising, "it is too important a matter to be dismissed lightly. I will let you have an answer in a few days. Still, Mr. Beaumont, I must thank you for your kind intentions regarding Reginald."
"Only too glad to be of service," replied Beaumont, with a bow.
"Meantime," said the vicar genially, "you must stop and have some dinner with us."
"Delighted," responded Beaumont, and went away with Reginald, very well satisfied with the result of the interview.
After dinner, hearing that a visitor was in the house Mrs. Larcher, who had been lying down all day under the influence of "The Affliction," made her appearance and greeted Beaumont with great cordiality.
"So pleased to see you," she said graciously, when she was established on the sofa amid a multiplicity of wraps and pillows; "quite a treat to have some one to talk to."
"Come, come, my dear, this is rather hard upon us," said the vicar good-humouredly.
"I mean some one new," explained Mrs. Larcher graciously. "I am so fond of company, but owing to my affliction see very, very few people; it's a great deprivation to me I assure you."
"No doubt," assented Beaumont, rather bored by the constant flow of Mrs. Larcher's conversation, "but I hope you will soon quite recover from your illness and then you can mix with the world."
"Never, ah never," murmured Mrs. Larcher, looking up to the ceiling. "I'm a wreck--positively a wreck--I will never, never be what I was--I suffer from so many things, do I not, Eleanor Gwendoline?"