"Constance!"
"Yes, although I have never been on terms to address her by her baptismal appellation, that, I confess, is the young lady I do mean."
Then Mrs. Simpson went on to tell her astonished listener how that Constance Hadlow had been visiting some county magnates in the near neighbourhood of Combe Park during the latter part of Lucius's illness; how she had been admitted to see and talk with the invalid, when other persons had been excluded with scant courtesy; how she had rapidly come to be on a footing of intimacy at the great house, which astonished the neighbourhood; and how at length that fact was explained by the current report that if Lucius had recovered—which at one time appeared not unlikely—he would have married her, with his father's full approbation.
"I did not venture to allude to the subject before Mr. Rivers—how brown he has become! Quite the southern hue of romance!—because, you know, he was said at one time to be desperately in love with his cousin; and I feared to hurt his feelings."
"Oh, I don't think it would hurt his feelings," said Mrs. Bransby; "I really do not believe he cares at all for his cousin, in that way."
"I'm sure he doesn't!" cried Ethel, who took a thoroughly feminine interest in the subject.
"Ethel! I scarcely think you know anything at all about the matter. And I am sure it is not for a little girl like you to give an opinion."
"No, mother. Only—Martin and I know who we should like him to marry. Don't we, Martin?"
Martin was rather shamefaced at being thus brought publicly into the discussion, and rebuffed his sister with a lofty air.
"Oh, don't talk bosh and silliness," he rejoined. "Girls are always bothering about a fellow's getting married. Leave him alone. He's very well as he is."