"Thank you, Mrs. Arabel," said I, laughing; "I am sorry you entertained so low an idea of our intelligence."
"Well, sir," returned the farmer's wife, with an air of excessive candour, "my husband, you see, he often has said to me, says he, 'That young squire Marmaduke, I'm darned if he ain't little better than a fool; he don't know what shot to use for rabbits, that he don't; I never saw his equal for ignorance. And as for that lad from the Ingies—that was you, you know, sir—well, of all the young fellows turned of seventeen as I ever saw, he's the'—"
Here Mrs. Arabel crimsoned, and stopped short, as if she had been very nearly betrayed into saying something which was not entirely complimentary.
"Pray, go on, my dear madam," said I; "'of all the young fellows turned of seventeen whom he had ever seen, I was the'—"
"Well, sir, he'd just the same opinion of you as he had of Master Marmaduke; but, for my part, I always said, that although you might neither on you know so much as you ought to, and though you might seem, as it were—"
"Ay, you always stood our friend, and said we were not such fools as we looked; did you?"
"Just so," replied Mrs. Arabel, simply; "and so you see it has turned out. If Mr. Marmaduke can only live elsewhere till something happens to Sir Massingberd—although, indeed, he looks as if nothing ever could hurt him—his life will doubtless be much pleasanter than at the Hall; it is no place for a young gentleman like him, surely, although, indeed, things are better there than they were. The dark-eyed foreigneering-looking young person, although, indeed, she was old enough to know better; well, she's gone."
"So I have heard," said I drily.
"Yes, she went away in a whirlwind, she did," continued Mrs. Arabel, reflectively.
"Dear me," replied I, "I never heard that."