In view of Finlay's absence, Dr Drummond, consulting with Mrs Kilbannon, decided that for the present Elgin need not be further informed.

There was no need, they agreed, to give people occasion to talk; and it would just be a nuisance to have to make so many explanations.

Both Mrs Kilbannon and her niece belonged to the race that takes great satisfaction in keeping its own counsel.

Their situation gained for them the further interest that nothing need be said about it; and the added importance of caution was plainly to be discerned in their bearing, even toward one another.
It was a portentous business, this of marrying a minister, under the most ordinary circumstances, not to be lightly dealt with, and even more of an undertaking in a far new country where the very wind blew differently, and the extraordinary freedom of conversation made it more than ever necessary to take heed to what you were saying.

So far as Miss Cameron and Mrs Kilbannon were aware, the matter had not been "spoken of" elsewhere at all.