'She is a charming girl—ever was a sweet child—and I am so happy about her future, Mr. Falconer,' said Mrs. Garth, resuming her knitting, without however raising her eyes to him she addressed.
'Her future?'
'With Hew—I mean—you understand me, of course?'
'Hew?'
'Yes,' she continued softly and gently, reluctantly, too, for she was loth to give him pain, 'Hew Montgomerie. In her circumstances, and with her wealth and its consequent and contingent responsibilities, it has been with us all an anxious matter, that she should choose well and wisely in the world of marriage; and thus, with Sir Piers' heir of entail, she will be the tenth Lady Montgomerie, without changing her name! Curious that, is it not? It cannot fail to be a most fortunate alliance; but I shall not intrude upon you, whom we have only had the pleasure of knowing so recently, these private family matters.'
Cecil's heart grew cold as a stone, while he listened and heard Hew's remarks thus corroborated, by what, Mrs. Garth felt with regret, must pain him, but deemed it for his future good to hear.
In reply to some half-muttered inquiry (he could not fashion it as a congratulation) she, by way of explanation and intended advice, said distinctly much more than even Hew had done. She told him, in detail, of Mary's large fortune; and how entirely Mary and it were—by the tenor of her father's will—at the behest of Sir Piers Montgomerie, whose great and sole object was to consolidate the wealth of the family in the person of Hew Caddish Montgomerie, his heir of entail, who, even with ancient Eaglescraig alone, would not be rich, and who would be the tenth baronet in succession from Sir Hew, who had been made one for his loyalty and valour in the battles of Montrose, particularly at Tippermuir, in 1644; and thus, that even a duke might lay, in vain, his coronet at the feet of Mary Montgomerie!
Pride of birth, and in his own family, of the old line of Eaglescraig, almost a collateral one with the House of Eglinton, had been, from youth, a passion with Sir Piers—a passion that had caused the ruin of his only son—and so on, with an earnest tone, a sad, yet gentle smile, she continued, for his own good as she supposed, to plant (warningly) certain daggers in the heart of her hearer.
'They do not seem much suited to each other, Miss Montgomerie and her intended,' suggested Falconer in a low voice, after a pause.
'Ah, so you think—so you think; but when "Love's young dream" and the honeymoon are over, they will settle down, I have no doubt, into a very happy, loving, and jog-trot couple.'