We have said that it was late in the evening when Mr Primrose arrived at Neverden. It was no great distance indeed to Smatterton; but why should he go there in any hurry, seeing that his daughter was not there? This consideration induced Mr Darnley to offer to the traveller the accommodation of a bed: for Mr Darnley was not a churlish man; he was only very cold, and very formal, and very pompous. The offer was readily accepted, and the rector of Neverden then conducted Mr Primrose from the study to the apartment in which the family was sitting. Great curiosity was excited as soon as Mr Darnley announced the name of his late arrived guest. The young ladies felt particularly interested in looking at the father of Penelope; but they did not make themselves, as they thought, quite so agreeable as they should have done had matters been proceeding in proper order with respect to their brother and Penelope. The absence of that species of agreeableness to which we allude, was no great inconvenience to Mr Primrose; for he was weary with travelling, and exhausted by manifold agitations, and it would not have been very agreeable to him with all this exhaustion to undergo a cheerful volley of everlasting interrogations; and Miss Mary Darnley would to a certainty have extorted from him a civil, ecclesiastical, statistical, botanical, and zoological, history of British India, to say nothing of Persia, China, Japan, and the million isles of the Eastern ocean. But though the young ladies were not disposed to apply the question to Mr Primrose, their mother, who was as ready to forgive as she was apt to forget, talked to him as cordially and cheerfully as if the day had been fixed for the marriage of Robert Darnley and Penelope Primrose. Her talk, however, was not wearying, because there was no affectation in it, and because there was much good feeling in it. Her talk was concerning her dear boy; and Mr Primrose, who had a parent’s heart, enjoyed such talk. “And so, Mr Primrose, you have seen my dear Robert? And how did he look? He is dying to return to Neverden. We expect him next week, for the ship is now in the Downs. Did you think, sir, he seemed in good health?” “In perfect health, madam: in fact I never saw a young man who had been so long in India look so well as your son.” “There was no yellowness in his look?” asked Mrs Darnley. “Not the slightest, I can assure Mrs Darnley.” “And was he not much sun-burnt?” Mr Primrose smiled, and said, “Not any more, madam, than a young man ought to be; and though I never had the pleasure of seeing the young gentleman before, I do really believe that whatever darkness may have been added to his complexion is rather an improvement to his appearance than otherwise.” “I am ashamed, Mr Primrose, to be so troublesome; but did you go aboard his ship when you were at St Helena? Do you know what sort of accommodations he had?”