'Why, who is dead?'
'Don't you know? Old Mr. Thomas Marchmont.'
'Yes, and his great-grandfather likewise! Well, you certainly are inclined to make the most of your connection with the peerage,'
'Edmund!' and for the first time Marian felt as if she had been making herself more foolish than magnanimous. He gave his arm and they walked along together. He presently began abruptly, 'What I came here for was to consult you about a plan for Gerald. You see I shall never get at him unless I have him alone. Now I don't like to take him away from you for the holidays, but I do not see how it is to be managed otherwise.'
'I don't do him any good now,' said Marian sadly.
'What I thought of was this; I find I can get leave for two months this summer. Now suppose I was to take him to Marchmont's grouse shooting place in Scotland, and about among the Highlands and Islands. Perhaps the pleasure of that excursion would make up for the being carried off by an awful guardian, and those scrambles might bring him to the old footing with me.'
'O it would be very nice to have him with you,' said Marian; 'but----'
'Well, what is the but?'
'I don't know, only would not taking him home be more likely to revive old associations than anything else?'
'No,' answered Edmund most decidedly; then in a more hesitating manner, as if casting about for reasons, he added, 'I mean he was at home last year--it would not appear so inviting as this expedition--it would be giving every one a great deal of trouble.'
'To have the Manor House set to rights--yes--but just a week at the Parsonage--just to revive the old feelings with you. For you to teach him how to behave to the Fern Torr people.'
'No,' repeated Edmund, 'it would not do.'
He spoke in a manner that made Marian look up in his face with surprise, and exclaim as if hurt, 'Then you are really casting off poor old Fern Torr.'
The next moment she was sorry she had said so, for his namesake in 'Kenilworth' could never have worn a more melancholy aspect than he, as he answered in a very low voice of deep feeling, 'I am the last man in the world to be reproached with too little affection for Fern Torr.'
Marian was grieved, surprised, confused, but she had no time to find an answer, for the quadrille was forming, Edmund began a search for _vis a vis_, and she found herself dancing before she had made up her mind what she should have said if she could have replied at once; but it was too late to return to the subject, and she thought it best to begin entirely another, by asking, the next time they were standing still, how he liked the officers of his new regiment.
'Very much, most of them,' replied Edmund; 'one or two are particularly nice people.'
'Do you like any as well as Captain Gresham or--'
'New friends are not old ones,' quickly answered Edmund.
'O no, but if you knew them as well, are there any equally worthy to be liked? I want you to be comfortable there very much, as it is all our fault.'
'Don't say any more of that, Marian. Thank you, I am very comfortable--they are a very pleasant set.'
'Are there any of them here?'
'Yes, three of them.'
