"I don't think I ought to tell you anything about it. It is a secret,
just as much as your mysteries are."
"Very well; you have told me enough for me to act upon, which I
most certainly shall do. It was only the other day I promised the
Squire to let him know if I suspected anything--any love affair, or
entanglement, much less an engagement, between either of his sons and
our girls."
"But this is not an engagement; he would not let it be so; if you
would only listen to me, I could tell you all. Only I do hope you
won't go and tell the Squire and everybody. Cynthia did so beg that
it might not be known. It is only my unfortunate frankness that has
led me into this scrape. I never could keep a secret from those whom
I love."
"I must tell the Squire. I shall not mention it to any one else. And
do you quite think it was consistent with your general frankness to
have overheard what you did, and never to have mentioned it to me?
I could have told you then that Dr. Nicholls' opinion was decidedly
opposed to mine, and that he believed that the disturbance about
which I consulted him on Osborne's behalf was merely temporary. Dr.
Nicholls would tell you that Osborne is as likely as any man to live
and marry and beget children."
If there was any skill used by Mr. Gibson so to word this speech
as to conceal his own opinion, Mrs. Gibson was not sharp enough to
find it out. She was dismayed, and Mr. Gibson enjoyed her dismay; it
restored him to something like his usual frame of mind.
"Let us review this misfortune, for I see you consider it as such,"
said he.
"No, not quite a misfortune," said she. "But, certainly, if I had
known Dr. Nicholls' opinion--" she hesitated.
"You see the advantage of always consulting me," he continued
gravely. "Here is Cynthia engaged--"
"Not engaged, I told you before. He would not allow it to be
considered an engagement on her part."
"Well, entangled in a love-affair with a lad of three-and-twenty,
with nothing beyond his fellowship and a chance of inheriting an
encumbered estate; no profession even, abroad for two years, and
I must go and tell his father all about it to-morrow."
"Oh dear! Pray say that, if he dislikes it, he has only to express
his opinion."
"I don't think you can act without Cynthia in the affair. And if I am
not mistaken, Cynthia will have a pretty stout will of her own on the
subject."