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Prowting said warmly. “I should not
think
of sending you back to the cottage this evening.”
    My mother looked as though she might accept with gratitude—but I considered of Lord Harold’s papers, lodged for the nonce in the henhouse, and interposed a negative.
    “You are very good, Mrs. Prowting, but we are perfectly content in the cottage. A clergyman’s family, as you know, is accustomed to the Dead.”
    A pompous speech enough; but Mrs. Prowting looked as though she admired it. My mother was nettled, and kicked my shin quite savagely beneath the table. She had the grace, however, not to engage in public argument.
    “I think you said that Captain Austen is serving on the China Station?” Mr. Prowting enquired. “Excellent! Excellent! We hope to welcome another member of the Navy into the bosom of our family before very long; a young man we greatly esteem—”
    “Papa! I beg you will not run on in that unbecoming way! I am sure I shall die of consciousness! The Austens can have no interest in Benjamin Clement—and to be sure, he is grown so odd of late—so inconstant in his attentions—that I protest I have
no
interest in him either!”
    This impassioned cry fell from the lips of the youngest Miss Prowting, a girl I should judge to be at least twenty. She was fair-haired, blue-eyed, and full-figured; her white muslin gown was bestowed from neck to hem with fluttering primrose ribbons. It was clear she was accounted a Great Beauty, but I could not join in the general acclaim. Tho’ Ann’s complexion was good, it bore an expression of peevishness, and she had not the slightest pretension to either wit or conversation.
    “Eh, do not be pouting at me, miss!” her father returned fondly, chucking her under the chin. “Young Benjamin is always the most constant of your beaux, no matter how little you are inclined to notice! Quite the belle of the village, our little Ann!”
    It was as well, I thought, that my mother and Ann Prowting had divided the dinner table between them; for I had rarely been so ill-disposed to the rigours of Society, nor been so woefully unable to concentrate my energies. My mind was full of Lord Harold’s bequest and the puzzle of the corpse in our cellar. I could not be attending to the insipidities of a country neighbourhood, however congenial the party.
    “The Squire was well, I hope, when you quitted Kent?” Mrs. Prowting enquired. A brief silence ensued; her gaze, I saw too late and with sudden horror, was fixed upon
me.
    “My brother was very well, I thank you, Mrs. Prowting,” I returned in a rush.
    “It’s a sad business, a gentleman of Mr. Austen’s circumstances being left with all those children on his hands.” Mrs. Prowting continued to study me, as though attempting to discern some likeness in my features—but it is Henry whom I resemble, not Edward. “A sad business, indeed; but Man proposes and the Lord disposes, as we have good reason to know. Does Mr. Austen think of giving up the Kentish place, and settling here in Chawton, with so many of his family fixed in the neighbourhood?”
    “I do not think my brother has any idea of quitting Kent,” I replied. “All his affections and interest are bound up in the environs of Canterbury.”
    “I should adore to go into Kent!” Ann Prowting sighed. “Hampshire beaux are nothing to those of Canterbury, I am sure! All the smart
ton
fellows descend upon the place for the races in August, Mamma!”
    Mamma did not appear inclined to notice this effusion; and it was the elder daughter, Catherine, who turned the conversation. She was dark where her sister was fair, and retiring in her disposition. We had not yet had five words together from her lips.
    “We were very sorry to hear of Mrs. Edward Austen’s passing,” she managed. “That lady only came to Chawton once within memory, but she left an impression of goodness as well as of fashion, and appears to have been everything that is amiable.”
    “Thank you,” I