These questions were asked with an air of simplicity evidently assumed. In truth, the interrogator knew well enough to what the conversation was tending; and, impatient with the ambiguity, every moment growing more painful to her, desired to bring it to its crisis.
Mr Vaughan was equally desirous of arriving at the same result, as testified by his reply.
“Ah, Kate! you little rogue!” said he, looking gratified at the opening thus made for him. “Egad! you’ve just hit the nail on the head. You’ve guessed right—only that we are both to be buyers. Mr Smythje is to purchase Mount Welcome; and what do you suppose he is to pay for it? Guess that!”
“Indeed, father, I cannot! How should I know? I am sure I do not. Only this I know, that I am sorry you should think of parting with Mount Welcome. I, for one, shall be loth to leave it. Though I do not expect now ever to be happy here, I think I should not be happier anywhere else.”
Mr Vaughan was too much wound-up in the thread of his own thoughts to notice the emphasis on the word “now,” or the double meaning of his daughter’s words.
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed he; “Mr Smythje’s purchase won’t dispossess us of Mount Welcome. Don’t be afraid of that, little Kate. But, come, try and guess the price he is to pay?”
“Father, I need not try. I am sure I could not guess it—not within thousands of pounds.”
“Not a thousand pounds! no, not one pound, unless his great big heart weighs that much, and his generous hand thrown into the scale—for that, Catherine, that is the price he is to pay.”
Mr Vaughan wound up this speech with a significant glance, and a triumphant gesture, expressive of astonishment at his own eloquence.
He looked for a response—one that would reciprocate his smiles and the joyful intelligence he fancied himself to have communicated.