Having made this discovery, and having silently reproached himself for his stupidity that he had not made it before, he did not hint the least word of his suspicion to Miss Primrose; but simply abstained from farther urging the matter about her residence at Neverden. Mr Darnley was too proud a man to stoop to any expostulations or reproofs, or to show anything like resentment upon the occasion. For he did not consider that Penelope had inflicted an injury on his family, but had merely declined a proffered honor. He continued therefore his conversation upon other topics connected with the doctor’s decease, and, leaving a message of sympathy for Mrs Greendale, politely, rather more politely than usual, took his leave of Penelope. She observed indeed a change in his manner, but ascribed it to the unusually serious impression produced on his mind by the loss of a friend and acquaintance. From the rectory Mr Darnley proceeded to the castle, to make a call of homage on the Earl of Smatterton. His lordship received the homage graciously, and said, as was usual with him on all such occasions, “Mr Darnley, I beg you will be seated.” Mr Darnley accordingly took a seat, and Lord Smatterton accordingly began to speak forth his own praises of his own most mighty condescension and benevolence. “You have been at the rectory this morning, Mr Darnley? It was very proper and suitable that your’s should be the first visit to the house of mourning. You found the poor woman well, I hope; that is, as well as may be under present circumstances?” Mr Darnley informed his lordship of the particulars of his visit to the rectory, not forgetting to mention his own offer to give an asylum to the doctor’s niece. “Mr Darnley,” replied his lordship, “I very much approve of your liberality. I can assure you that I shall take care that neither the widow nor the niece shall be destitute. I have always entertained a very high opinion of Dr Greendale. He was truly an excellent man. As soon as I heard of his illness I sent for my own physician to attend him, and had it not been so very late in the evening I should have gone down to see him myself. And indeed, notwithstanding it was so late, I certainly should have gone had I been aware of the danger in which he was. However I did everything in my power, and I shall also have an eye to the well-being of those who are by his death left destitute; for I think I have understood that the doctor had no property of any consideration independently of his living. But pray, Mr Darnley, what think you of the propriety of giving to the world a volume or two of the doctor’s sermons? They contain much good sense and sound doctrine. They are not indeed so sublime as Irving’s, or so beautiful as Alison’s, nor was it necessary that they should be; for the common people cannot understand the sublime and beautiful. What think you, I say, Mr Darnley, of the propriety and eligibility of publishing some of Dr Greendale’s sermons?”