And now it was very natural that the great agriculturist should be desirous of knowing the name and designation of his fellow traveller, and to ascertain that was also no great difficulty. As soon as he found that he was conversing with the father of Penelope Primrose, he broke out into the most eloquent panegyrics on the character, moral, intellectual, and professional, of the late rector of the parish, and congratulated Mr Primrose in having had the good fortune to confide his daughter to the care of so superlatively excellent a man. “But, sir,” as suddenly recollecting himself, “perhaps you will do me the honor to walk in and sit down under my humble roof; for I can give you the latest information concerning Miss Primrose. It is very singular that I should have travelled up to London with the daughter and down from London with the father.”
At that singularity, or at his own penetration in discovering the curious coincidence, Mr Kipperson smiled. Mr Primrose accepted the invitation and walked into Mr Kipperson’s house, which was near the place where they had met. It was a piece of affectation in Mr Kipperson to call his place of abode a humble roof. True, it was not so magnificent as Smatterton castle, but its owner had been at great pains and expense to make it look quite the reverse of humble. That which had been a productive little garden was converted into a lawn. Those barns, piggeries, and outhouses, in which was deposited no small part of the owner’s wealth, had been gracefully, but ungratefully, planted out. French windows supplied the place of old-fashioned casements, and green verandahs gave Peter Kipperson’s farm-house as much as possible the air of an Oriental palace.
Mr Primrose was surprised, as Peter hoped and designed, at the very learned air of the library, to say nothing of the numerous busts and casts which in the narrow entrance occupied that room which would have been much more usefully devoted to cloak-pegs. When they were seated in the library Mr Kipperson commenced his narrative, telling Mr Primrose what the reader is already acquainted with. But still the father of Penelope was not reconciled even to the attempt or proposal to make his daughter a public singer. Mr Kipperson however assured him, that nothing could be more respectable than the manner in which the Countess of Smatterton designed to bring out Miss Primrose.
“I was present at an evening party,” said the agriculturist, “given by my friend the Countess of Smatterton, for the express purpose of introducing Miss Primrose to some of the best society in town. There were several persons of rank there, and among the rest the celebrated Duchess of Steeple Bumstead; and her Grace was quite enraptured with Miss Primrose.”
“Well,” said the father of Penelope with some shortness and dryness of manner, “I don’t understand these matters. I have been so long out of England that I almost forget the customs of my native land; but I do not approve of this kind of association with persons of so much higher rank and fortune. The Countess of Smatterton cannot consider my daughter as an equal, and therefore she is tolerated for the amusement she can afford. I don’t like it, sir, I don’t like it. But, Mr Kipperson, can you tell me what kind of a man is Lord Spoonbill?”
Mr Kipperson promptly replied: “A man of no intellect whatever.”
“A fig for intellect,” replied Mr Primrose; “but is he a man of good character?”
“Indeed sir,” responded the great agriculturist of Smatterton, “I am sorry to say he is not. The Earl himself is a very respectable man, so far as moral conduct is concerned, though he is a man of no mind; and he is a proud man, very distant and pompous, and quite an exclusive.”
“An exclusive!” echoed Mr Primrose; “what is meant by an exclusive?”
“By exclusive, sir, I mean that the Earl is not easily led to associate with those whom he considers of an inferior rank to himself; he is one of a set, as it were.”