“My dear sir, this is most extraordinary! he is the very man I was thinking of. I am delighted to hear it; but it is strange that it should be settled without my knowing it; neither Mr. Huyton nor Miss Maxwell has informed us. I wonder she did not let her cousins, my daughters, know. I wonder Charles Huyton has not called to inform me.”
“Mr. Huyton went abroad last week,” observed Mr. Duncan, quietly.
“Abroad!—are you certain? I knew nothing about that, and I should have expected, from the sort of terms we were on, that he would have told me. I can hardly believe it.”
Mr. Duncan made no observation.
“I shall call at ‘the Ferns’ to inquire as I go home. Perhaps you have been misinformed!” continued Mr. Barham.
“I have reason to think not,” was the Vicar’s quiet observation,
conveying, however, no conviction to the mind of his visitor, who only thought he knew nothing about it.
“But about Edward Paine,” continued Mr. Barham; “how came it settled without my hearing, I wonder? Whose arrangement, may I ask, was it?”
“It was so recently settled,” answered Mr. Duncan, “that perhaps there has not been time to let you know; and in that case, I regret I have forestalled them in giving information, which would, no doubt, have come more gracefully from the parties in whom you are so much interested. Charles knew my wishes, and introduced his cousin here; and Mr. Paine, once introduced, is a person to make his own way; but almost nothing was said of the lady, so that I was entirely ignorant of her being a connection of yours. Charles did not even mention her name to us, did he, Hilary?”
“Excuse me,” said Mr. Barham; “may I inquire who Charles is?”