Without forming any definite ideas as to the ultimate results likely to ensue, he entered at once with youthful ardor upon an acquaintance so accidentally formed. It was not likely that a young man of large fortune and prepossessing person and manners, would long be left to the solitude of his own country house, nor obliged to pick up his acquaintance at random in the forest; but he was sufficiently peculiar and independent in his tastes and habits, to take his own line and adhere to it; and for the present his chosen line lay in associating almost exclusively with the Duncans. Prudent fathers of families, and speculating brothers, hoping for future _battues_ or other delights, made visits at the Ferns, as soon as it was generally known that the owner was resident there; and, thanks to the necessity of eating and drinking, and the circulating nature of butchers and bakers, as well as gossip in a country place, that was pretty soon after his arrival. No one had, however, as yet got further than the doorway, the answer being apparently stereotyped, that the house was in confusion, and Mr. Huyton did not receive company. The Duncans alone had been permitted to enter. They were perfectly unconscious of the superior privilege accorded them. They were out of the way of gossip, and had few visitors except the farmers’ and cottagers’ wives of their own village. Mr. Huyton himself was the only landed proprietor in the parish, and on that account might be considered as belonging to them. The lay-impropriator resided six or seven miles from them; he was a man generally well-spoken of, and the father of two daughters, but there had never been any intercourse between them. In short, Mr. Huyton’s appearance among them was like the discovery of a new and wonderful comet to an enthusiastic astronomer; and he could not be more ready for the acquaintance, than they were to admit and encourage it. Had Mr. Duncan been really a prudent father, he might have hesitated, perhaps, to admit to such an intimacy a young man of whom they knew only the name and the residence; but his charity made him literally think no evil; and the young men proved so congenial to each other in general taste, that they speedily became as nearly inseparable as the five miles between their respective homes would permit. Maurice would have been constantly at the Ferns, if the owner of that place had not been so often at Hurstdene; and the little girls never seemed to think of riding in any other direction, unless he was with them to guide them in a different path. All his plans were brought over to the Vicarage to be discussed and re-arranged according to the tastes of his friends there; nominally of the whole family, actually of Hilary herself, in most cases, with the assistance of her father’s opinion.