And the Reverend Hugh suddenly laughed aloud.
At the same time he hoped he had concealed his relief, which was great. His youngest sister's girl was not going to be snapped up by a fortune-hunter after all. That had always been his anxiety. Seventy-five pounds a year (certain) remained a considerable fortune to this Victorian. In his valley quite a large house, with a nice bit of garden, too (running steeply up a mountain-side), was to be had for a rent of sixteen pounds. He would have thought of that himself.... But the leggy, fair-haired boy who was now smiling across the oval hotel table at his Gwenna had meant only what he had said. The older man realised that. So, waiving for the present the question of means, the Reverend Hugh went on, in rather a modified tone, to ask other questions.
Asking questions of the newly accepted suitor seems to be all that remains for the parent or guardian of our times. It is the sole survival of that potent authority which once disposed (or said it disposed) of the young lady's hand. Clearing his throat with the same little sound that so often heralded the words of some text from his pulpit, the Reverend Hugh began by inquiring where Gwenna, after her short honeymoon, was supposed to be going to live.
Nowhere new, it appeared! She had her berth at the Aircraft Factory, her room at Mrs. Crewe's cottage for when young Dampier was away. (Yes; from his tone when he spoke of it, evidently that parting was to be kept in the background and evaded as much as possible for the present.) And if he were in London, he had his rooms in Camden Town. Do for them both, perhaps.... His bachelor digs.; not bad ones....
Well, but no _house_? Dear me. That was a gipsyish sort of plan, wasn't it? That was a new idea of setting up housekeeping to Uncle Hugh. He, himself, was an old bachelor. But he could see that this was all very different from the ideas of all the young couples in _his_ time. When Gwenna's father, now, was courting Gwenna's mother, well! he, Hugh Lloyd, had never heard such a lot of talk about _Mahoggani_. _And_ tebbel-linen. _And_ who was to have the three feather-beds from the old Quarry-house; Gwenna's mother, or Gwenna's mother's sister----