CHAPTER VII.
THE DISCLOSURE.
MR. PRESCOTT spread himself out before the fireplace, standing with his legs apart, and his coat tails extended. There was, of course, no fire in the month of June, but an Englishman spreading himself out upon his own hearthrug, like a cock on his appropriate elevation, is more an Englishman than at any other moment. The Squire looked benevolently, yet severely upon the curate, who sat before him, twisting his soft hat in his hands. This was the only sign of embarrassment Mr. Asquith showed, but it was very discernible. He sat with his face turned towards his judge, without any shrinking or quailing, a little pale, very self-possessed and quiet. It was a very serious moment, and that the curate well knew.
“My niece!” Mr. Prescott said, and his countenance cleared a little, for he had thought at first that it must be one of the princesses of his house that this man was wooing. “Mary! why, Mary is not old enough for this sort of thing. How old is she? Why, she is only a child!”
“You have got used to considering her a child, Mr. Prescott; but I believe she is one-and-twenty, if you will inquire.”
Mr. Prescott made a calculation within himself, and after a moment said, “So she is: I believe she is in her two-and-twentieth year. Who would have thought it! You must know,” he added, “Mr. Asquith—though I don’t know what your ideas may be on that subject—that though Mary is my niece, she has no money, not a penny. My sister was sadly imprudent in her marriage. Her orphan child, of course, had a home with me, but there is nothing in the way of fortune, not a sou.”
“So I understood,” said the curate, “otherwise I should never have ventured to approach her, being myself so poor a man.”
“Ah!” said the Squire, looking at him doubtfully; then he added with cheerfulness, “You are still on the first step, Mr. Asquith, there is no telling how far you may go.”
“I am not the stuff of which bishops are made,” said the curate, with a short laugh.
“Well, there is no telling,” said the other; and then he entered upon business. “You will understand,” he said, “that I must make certain inquiries before going any farther. In the matter of family now. We are not rich people, but in that respect we Prescotts have certain pretensions——”
“In that respect it is very easy to answer you, Mr. Prescott. So far as old family goes, mine is old enough. We have been in Cumberland in direct descent, father and son, settled in the same place, for three hundred years. But——” Mr. Prescott had been nodding his head in approval, saying to himself that he knew Asquith was a good name in the North. He looked up, but only with the faintest shadow on his face, at the curate’s “but.”