“Yes, yes; I know there is an occasional fine day. You come from the south of England probably, Miss Joscelyn, where some sort of fine weather is to be found?”
“No, indeed, I come from the north—quite the north, close to Scotland; and we have often beautiful weather,” said Lydia, with a glow of patriotism; “a different blue from this, and a great deal more cloud; but then that is what makes it so beautiful, flying over the hills, clearing off in a moment, then dropping again like a white veil, and the sun bursting out all in a moment like a surprise. When one comes to think of it the variety is the charm. Here you have the same thing all day long, and every day; but with us the skies are never the same for an hour; and as for cold, I never feel any cold; one takes a brisk walk, and that is all that is wanted.”
“I see you enter into the spirit of the country. The north? That is where my son-in-law comes from.” The Vice-Consul always said to himself that he put in his tone a note of interrogation to this question; but Lydia took it for a statement, and received it without hesitation.
“Yes, I suppose so,” she said.
“I think I heard you say that you knew—relations of his? Are they neighbours of yours? I am interested in everything about Harry.”
“That puzzles me,” she said, “to hear you call him Harry. I thought he was Isaac Oliver. I know some one of that name.”
“A neighbour? It is, as you say, an uncommon name. I might have thought of that. Yes, quite an uncommon name. And your Mr. Oliver, Miss Joscelyn, was——?”
“Oh,” cried Lydia, forgetting all previous cautions, with a laugh at the unnecessary title, “he was not Mr. Oliver at all. He was a man whom—he was a man—he was a——”
Here she stopped all at once, bethinking herself of Lady Brotherton’s injunction, and of the possible effect upon the young man who had looked at her with such a strange, curious look, of this revelation. She stopped all at once, and looked at her questioner with sudden alarm. “I have not the least reason to think that he is a relation of Mr. Oliver’s,” she said. “It was only an idea on my part. It was because of the name. When I heard the name I thought it must be some one sent to bring me home.”
“It is a curious name. We have got used to it: we have forgotten that. The man then is—not a gentleman? I think I may guess as much. He is a—what? A farmer—a yeoman? The yeomen in the north country, I have always heard, are a very fine, independent class of men.”