But, with native acuteness, she soon discovered that Mr.
Wyvern's gaze had very little to do with the immediate subject of
his thought, or, what was much the same thing, that he seldom gave
the whole of his attention to the matter outwardly calling for it.
He was a man of profound mental absences; he could make replies,
even put queries, and all the while be brooding intensely upon a
wholly different subject. Mrs. Waltham did not altogether relish it;
she was in the habit of being heard with deference; but, to be sure,
a clergyman only talked of worldly things by way of concession. It
certainly seemed so in this clergyman's case.
'Your prospect,' Mr. Wyvern remarked presently, 'will not be
improved by the works below.'
His voice was very deep, and all his words were weighed in the
utterance. This deliberation at times led to peculiarities of
emphasis in single words. Probably he was a man of philological
crotchets; he said, for instance, 'pro-spect.'
'I scarcely think Mr. Eldon will go on with the mining,' replied
Mrs. Waltham.
'Ah! you think not?'
'I am quite sure he said that unconsciously,' the lady remarked to
herself. 'He's thinking of some quite different affair.'
'Mr. Eldon,' the clergyman resumed, fixing upon her an absent eye,
'is Mr. Mutimer's son-in-law, I understand?'
'His brother, Mr.
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