“To be sure not. But he is a handsome fellow; and what should make you like him is the interest he takes in Clare and her prospects. He’s constantly suggesting something that can be done to her house, and I know he sends her fruit, and flowers, and game just as regularly as we should ourselves, if we lived at Ashcombe.”

“How old is he?” said Lady Cumnor, with a faint suspicion of motives in her mind.

“About twenty-seven, I think. Ah! I see what is in your ladyship’s head. No! no! he’s too young for that. You must look out for some middle-aged man, if you want to get poor Clare married; Preston won’t do.”

“I’m not a match-maker, as you might know. I never did it for my own daughters. I’m not likely to do it for Clare,” said she, leaning back languidly.

“Well! you might do a worse thing. I’m beginning to think she’ll never get on as a school-mistress, though why she shouldn’t, I’m sure I don’t know; for she’s an uncommonly pretty woman for her age, and her having lived in our family, and your having had her so often with you, ought to go a good way. I say, my lady, what do you think of Gibson? He would be just the right age—widower—lives near the Towers.”

“I told you just now I was no match-maker, my lord. I suppose we had better go by the old road—the people at those inns know us?”

And so they passed on to speaking about other things than Mrs. Kirkpatrick and her prospects, scholastic or matrimonial.