“I’m glad to hear it,” said Sir Murray, dryly.
“Ya-as; beginning to understand one another’s idio—what is it?—syncracies, don’t you call it? I think Isa likes me.”
“Oh! yes, of course—of course!” said Sir Murray. “By the way, Maudlaine,” he continued, taking the young man’s arm and walking slowly with him down a path, “I hope you will be particular about the place; for I dare say I shall give it up to you young folks. I mean to be pretty stringent, though, I can assure you: I won’t have a tree touched—no timber felled; there is none too much now. I should not like the lake drained either: I should particularly object to that. It might be said,” continued Sir Murray, hastily, “that it made the place damp; but I don’t think it—I don’t think it.”
“Wouldn’t dream of doing anything distasteful, of course,” said the Viscount. “Always be glad of your advice, of course, if I had any ideas of improving anything. By the way, though, Gernon, she’s mad after botany.”
“She? Who is?” said Sir Murray, starting.
“She is—Isa, you know. I shall have to work it up, for she don’t seem to like my not being able to enter into the names of weeds with her. Not a weedy man myself, you know, eh? Ha, ha, ha!” And he laughed at what he intended for a joke.
“Was she botanising to-day?” said Sir Murray, huskily.
“Ya-a-as! Said it was her mother’s favourite pursuit, though I don’t know why she should like it for that reason, eh?”
“Who told her that absurd nonsense?” exclaimed Sir Murray, angrily.
“Well, she did tell me,” said the lover; “but, a—a—really, you know, I can’t recollect. Don’t particularly want to know, I suppose?”