Mrs. Thornburgh surveyed Rose's smiling frankness with a little sigh. Things were going grandly, but she could imagine a disposition of affairs which would have given her personally more pleasure.
'How—would—you—like—him for a brother-in-law?' she inquired, beginning in a whisper, with slow emphasis, patting Rose's arm, and bringing out the last words with a rush.
Agnes caught the twinkle in Rose's eye, but she answered for them both demurely.
'We have no objection to entertain the idea. But you must explain.'
'Explain!' cried Mrs. Thornburgh. 'I should think it explains itself. At least if you'd been in this house the last twenty-four hours you'd think so. Since the moment when he first met her, it's been "Miss Leyburn," "Miss Leyburn," all the time. One might have seen it with half an eye from the beginning.'
Mrs. Thornburgh had not seen it with two eyes, as we know, till it was pointed out to her; but her imagination worked with equal liveliness backwards or forwards.
'He went to see you yesterday, didn't he—yes, I know he did—and he overtook her in the pony-carriage—the vicar saw them from across the valley—and he brought her back from your house, and then he kept William up till nearly twelve talking of her. And now he wants a picnic. Oh, it's as plain as a pike-staff. And, my dears, nothing to be said against him. Fifteen hundred a year if he's a penny. A nice living, only his mother to look after, and as good a young fellow as ever stepped.'
Mrs. Thornburgh stopped, choked almost by her own eloquence. The girls, who had by this time established her between them on a garden-seat, looked at her with smiling composure. They were accustomed to letting her have her budget out.
'And now, of course,' she resumed, taking breath, and chilled a little by their silence, 'now, of course, I want to know about Catherine?' She regarded them with anxious interrogation. Rose, still smiling, slowly shook her head.
'What!' cried Mrs. Thornburgh; then, with charming inconsistency, 'oh, you can't know anything in two days.'