“Well, what will you say—and you, Mr. Darnley, if it should be a story about a young lady?”
“Do you mean that Uncle David is going to marry? I think it would be an awful pity!” exclaimed Alice.
“Well, dear, to put you out of pain, I'll tell you at once; I only know this—that he is going to provide for her somehow, but whether by adopting her as a child, or taking her for a wife, I can't tell. Only I never saw any one looking archer than Mr. Brounker did to-day when he told me; and I fancied from that it could not be so dull a business as merely making her his daughter.”
“And who is the young lady?” asked Alice.
“Did you ever happen to meet anywhere a Miss Grace Maubray?”
“Oh, yes,” answered Alice quickly. “She was staying, and her father, Colonel Maubray, at the Wymerings' last autumn. She's quite lovely, I think, and very clever—but I don't know—I think she's a little ill-natured, but very amusing. She seems to have a talent for cutting people up—and a little of that kind of thing, you know, is very well, but one does not care for it always. And is she really the young lady?”
“Yes, and—— Dear me! Mr. Darnley, I'm afraid my story has alarmed you.”
“Why should it?” laughed Vivian Darnley, partly to cover, perhaps, a little confusion.
“I can't tell, I'm sure, but you blushed as much as a man can; and you know you did. I wonder, Alice, what this under-plot can be, where all is so romantic. Perhaps, after all, Mr. David Arden is to adopt the young lady, and some one else, to whom he is also kind, is to marry her. Don't you think that would be a very natural arrangement?”
Alice laughed, and Darnley laughed; but he was embarrassed.