“What do you mean, child?” he said. “News about Craig-Morion! What sort of news?”
“Oh, that it’s going to be sold or let, or something of that kind,” replied Betty calmly.
“Going to be sold, Craig-Morion!” exclaimed her father, his voice rising to a thin, high pitch. “What on earth has put such a thing in your head? Of course not.” But the very excitement of his tones testified to a certain unacknowledged uneasiness.
“Oh, well,” said Betty, “I didn’t really suppose it was going to be sold. But none of its present owners ever care to come there, so I thought perhaps there was to be a change of some kind.”
“And why should you suppose there was to be a change of any kind?” repeated Mr Morion, with a sort of grim repetition of her words, decidedly irritating, if his daughters had not been inured to it.
Betty flushed slightly.
“It was only something we noticed last night,” she replied, going on to relate the incidents that had attracted their attention. Her father would not condescend to comment on her information, but Lady Emma did not conceal her interest, and cross-questioned both her daughters. And from behind his newspaper her husband listened, attentively enough.
“It is curious,” she said. “If you pass that way to-day, girls, try to see old Webb and find out if anything has happened. Can any of the Morions possibly be coming down, Charles, do you suppose?”
Mr Morion grunted.
“Any of the Morions! How many of them do you think there are?” he said ironically. “You know very well that the present man was an only son, and his father before him the same.”