“I see you enter into the spirit of the country. The north? That is where my son-in-law comes from.” The Vice-Consul always said to himself that he put in his tone a note of interrogation to this question; but Lydia took it for a statement, and received it without hesitation.
“I think I heard you say that you knew--relations of his? Are they neighbours of yours? I am interested in everything about Harry.”
“That puzzles me,” she said, “to hear you call him Harry. I thought he was Isaac Oliver. I know some one of that name.”
“A neighbour? It is, as you say, an uncommon name. I might have thought of that. Yes, quite an uncommon name. And your Mr. Oliver, Miss Joscelyn, was----?”
“Oh,” cried Lydia, forgetting all previous cautions, with a laugh at the unnecessary title, “he was not _Mr._ Oliver at all. He was a man whom--he was a man--he was a----”
Here she stopped all at once, bethinking herself of Lady Brotherton’s injunction, and of the possible effect upon the young man who had looked at her with such a strange, curious look, of this revelation. She stopped all at once, and looked at her questioner with sudden alarm. “I have not the least reason to think that he is a relation of Mr. Oliver’s,” she said. “It was only an idea on my part. It was because of the name. When I heard the name I thought it must be some one sent to bring me home.”
“It _is_ a curious name. We have got used to it: we have forgotten that. The man then is--not a gentleman? I think I may guess as much. He is a--what? A farmer--a yeoman? The yeomen in the north country, I have always heard, are a very fine, independent class of men.”
“Oh, it is not a farmer, or a---- Indeed, indeed, it was the silliest mistake on my part. Besides, it is not really the same name, even if that were anything, for you call him Harry; so he cannot be Isaac Oliver, after all.”
“You must not think me too pressing, Miss Joscelyn. I have a particular reason for wishing to know. We have never known much about his family; and I think I am sure that it must be the same family, for the name of Joscelyn is---- What is it, what is it, Harry? Am I wanted? This is the way we are worked, we poor servants of the public. H.B.M., God bless her! is a hard taskmistress: but this conversation is too interesting to be abandoned. Keep my seat for me here, Paolo. I put great confidence in you till I come back.”