"I only heard last night," he continued, rubbing his hands, and looking a whole volume of vulgar pleasantries, "that the redoubtable Kingston has been vanquished at last, and that it is to your bow and spear that he has fallen. Allow me to congratulate you, Miss Fetherstonhaugh." "To congratulate _him_, I should think you mean," broke in Mr. Dalrymple, who was studying the effect of sunset on a picture of the Adelonga homestead and pulling his moustaches violently. "Hadn't we better go and wash our hands, Digby, and make ourselves more fit for ladies' company?" "To congratulate him, too, certainly," said Mr. Hale; "very much so, of course. But still it is a great conquest on the part of Miss Fetherstonhaugh. Perhaps you don't know Kingston?" "I have not that honour," replied Mr. Dalrymple stiffly; and the tone of his voice strongly implied that he did not in the least degree desire it. "Well, I do; and I know that he has openly defied the combined powers of her charming sex for--I am afraid to say how many years--as long as I can remember." "I daresay that has not distressed them," said Mr. Dalrymple. "Come, come, Hale," said Mr. Digby, who thought his kinsman's allusion to Mr. Kingston's age a terrible slip of the tongue; "let us go and wash our hands. Come along, Lessel." "And my wife tells me," continued the irrepressible little man, "that the--a--the interesting event is to take place very shortly!" Rachel came out of her majestic reticence with a rush that astonished everybody. "Oh, _no_, Mr. Hale--not for a _long_ time--not for a year, at the very least! Who _could_ have told Mrs. Hale such a thing? I assure you it is quite, quite wrong! _Do_ you know who told her? Was it my aunt?" She looked at him with an earnest, imploring look that aroused Mr. Dalrymple to regard her with considerably sharpened interest. The alarming thought had struck her that her lover might have privately enlisted Mrs. Hardy's support for his new scheme; and if so, how should she be able to resist so formidable a pressure? "I think it was Mrs. Thornley told Mrs. Hale. She had a letter from her sister, Mrs. Reade, yesterday; and Mrs. Reade had mentioned it. Ladies' gossip, Miss Fetherstonhaugh!--ladies never can keep secrets, you know. They tell everything to one another, and then to us. And we--we tell them nothing. We know better, eh, Digby?" "Come along," said Digby, who was getting a little savage, "and don't talk like a fool." At this critical juncture Mr. Thornley appeared to announce that there was bread and cheese in the dining-room for anybody who was hungry. Whereupon the men trooped out--all but Mr. Dalrymple, who apparently was not hungry. He was lounging at Rachel's side, with an elbow on the mantelpiece, pulling his moustache meditatively; and he did not move. Rachel was fluttered and excited.