XXXV. MR. GIBSON'S GOOD FORTUNE…

XXXV. MR. GIBSON'S GOOD FORTUNE

"I'll bet you half-a-crown, my lad, you're thrown over at last, like the rest of them. There's nothing she likes so much as taking some one up in order that she may throw him over afterwards." It was thus that Mr. Bartholomew Burgess cautioned his nephew Brooke.

"I'll take care that she shan't break my heart, Uncle Barty. I will go my way and she may go hers, and she may give her money to the hospital if she pleases."

On the morning after his arrival Brooke Burgess had declared aloud in Miss Stanbury's parlour that he was going over to the bank to see his uncle. Now there was in this almost a breach of contract. Miss Stanbury, when she invited the young man to Exeter, had stipulated that there should be no intercourse between her house and the bank. "Of course, I shall not need to know where you go or where you don't go," she had written; "but after all that has passed there must not be any positive intercourse between my house and the bank." And now he had spoken of going over to C and B, as he called them, with the utmost indifference. Miss Stanbury had looked very grave, but had said nothing. She had determined to be on her guard, so that she should not be driven to quarrel with Brooke if she could avoid it.

Bartholomew Burgess was a tall, thin, ill-tempered old man, as well-known in Exeter as the cathedral, and respected after a fashion. No one liked him. He said ill-natured things of all his neighbours, and had never earned any reputation for doing good-natured acts. But he had lived in Exeter for nearly seventy years, and had achieved that sort of esteem which comes from long tenure. And he had committed no great iniquities in the course of his fifty years of business. The bank had never stopped payment, and he had robbed no one. He had not swallowed up widows and orphans, and had done his work in the firm of Cropper and Burgess after the old-fashioned safe manner, which leads neither to riches nor to ruin. Therefore he was respected. But he was a discontented, sour old man, who believed himself to have been injured by all his own friends, who disliked his own partners because they had bought that which had, at any rate, never belonged to him;--and whose strongest passion it was to hate Miss Stanbury of the Close.

"She's got a parson by the hand, now," said the uncle, as he continued his caution to the nephew.

"There was a clergyman there last night."

"No doubt, and she'll play him off against you, and you against him; and then she'll throw you both over. I know her."

"She has got a right to do what she likes with her own, Uncle Barty."

"And how did she get it? Never mind. I'm not going to set you against her, if you're her favourite for the moment. She has a niece with her there,--hasn't she?"

"One of her brother's daughters."

"They say she's going to make that clergyman marry her."

"What;--Mr. Gibson?"

"Yes. They tell me he was as good as engaged to another girl,--one of the Frenches of Heavitree. And therefore dear Jemima could do nothing better than interfere. When she has succeeded in breaking the girl's heart--"

"Which girl's heart, Uncle Barty?"

"The girl the man was to have married; when that's done she'll throw Gibson over. You'll see. She'll refuse to give the girl a shilling. She took the girl's brother by the hand ever so long, and then she threw him over. And she'll throw the girl over too, and send her back to the place she came from. And then she'll throw you over."

"According to you, she must be the most malicious old woman that ever was allowed to live!"

"I don't think there are many to beat her, as far as malice goes. But you'll find out for yourself. I shouldn't be surprised if she were to tell you before long that you were to marry the niece."

"I shouldn't think that such very hard lines either," said Brooke Burgess.

"I've no doubt you may have her if you like," said Barty, "in spite of Mr. Gibson. Only I should recommend you to take care and get the money first."

When Brooke went back to the house in the Close, Miss Stanbury was quite fussy in her silence. She would have given much to have been told something about Barty, and, above all, to have learned what Barty had said about herself. But she was far too proud even to mention the old man's name of her own accord. She was quite sure that she had been abused. She guessed, probably with tolerable accuracy, the kind of things that had been said of her, and suggested to herself what answer Brooke would make to such accusations. But she had resolved to cloak it all in silence, and pretended for a while not to remember the young man's declared intention when he left the house. "It seems odd to me," said Brooke, "that Uncle Barty should always live alone as he does. He must have a dreary time of it."

"I don't know anything about your Uncle Barty's manner of living."

"No;--I suppose not. You and he are not friends."

"By no means, Brooke."

"He lives there all alone in that poky bank-house, and nobody ever goes near him. I wonder whether he has any friends in the city?"

"I really cannot tell you anything about his friends. And, to tell you the truth, Brooke, I don't want to talk about your uncle. Of course, you can go to see him when you please, but I'd rather you didn't tell me of your visits afterwards."

"There is nothing in the world I hate so much as a secret," said he. He had no intention in this of animadverting upon Miss Stanbury's secret enmity, nor had he purposed to ask any question as to her relations with the old man. He had alluded to his dislike of having secrets of his own. But she misunderstood him.

"If you are anxious to know--" she said, becoming very red in the face.

"I am not at all curious to know. You quite mistake me."

"He has chosen to believe,--or to say that he believed,--that I wronged him in regard to his brother's will. I nursed his brother when he was dying,--as I considered it to be my duty to do. I cannot tell you all that story. It is too long, and too sad. Romance is very pretty in novels, but the romance of a life is always a melancholy matter. They are most happy who have no story to tell."

"I quite believe that."

"But your Uncle Barty chose to think,--indeed, I hardly know what he thought. He said that the will was a will of my making. When it was made I and his brother were apart; we were not even on speaking terms. There had been a quarrel, and all manner of folly. I am not very proud when I look back upon it. It is not that I think myself better than others; but your Uncle Brooke's will was made before we had come together again. When he was ill it was natural that I should go to him,--after all that had passed between us. Eh, Brooke?"

"It was womanly."

"But it made no difference about the will. Mr. Bartholomew Burgess might have known that at once, and must have known it afterwards. But he has never acknowledged that he was wrong;--never even yet."

"He could not bring himself to do that, I should say."

"The will was no great triumph to me. I could have done without it. As God is my judge, I would not have lifted up my little finger to get either a part or the whole of poor Brooke's money. If I had known that a word would have done it, I would have bitten my tongue out before it should have been spoken." She had risen from her seat, and was speaking with a solemnity that almost filled her listener with awe. She was a woman short of stature; but now, as she stood over him, she seemed to be tall and majestic. "But when the man was dead," she continued, "and the will was there,--the property was mine, and I was bound in duty to exercise the privileges and bear the responsibilities which the dead man had conferred upon me. It was Barty, then, who sent a low attorney to me, offering me a compromise. What had I to compromise? Compromise! No. If it was not mine by all the right the law could give, I would sooner have starved than have had a crust of bread out of the money." She had now clenched both her fists, and was shaking them rapidly as she stood over him, looking down upon him.

"Of course it was your own."

"Yes. Though they asked me to compromise, and sent messages to me to frighten me;--both Barty and your Uncle Tom; ay, and your father too, Brooke; they did not dare to go to law. To law, indeed! If ever there was a good will in the world, the will of your Uncle Brooke was good. They could talk, and malign me, and tell lies as to dates, and strive to make my name odious in the county; but they knew that the will was good. They did not succeed very well in what they did attempt."

"I would try to forget it all now, Aunt Stanbury."

"Forget it! How is that to be done? How can the mind forget the history of its own life? No,--I cannot forget it. I can forgive it."

"Then why not forgive it?"

"I do. I have. Why else are you here?"

"But forgive old Uncle Barty also!"

"Has he forgiven me? Come now. If I wished to forgive him, how should I begin? Would he be gracious if I went to him? Does he love me, do you think,--or hate me? Uncle Barty is a good hater. It is the best point about him. No, Brooke, we won't try the farce of a reconciliation after a long life of enmity. Nobody would believe us, and we should not believe each other."

"Then I certainly would not try."

"I do not mean to do so. The truth is, Brooke, you shall have it all when I'm gone, if you don't turn against me. You won't take to writing for penny newspapers, will you, Brooke?" As she asked the question she put one of her hands softly on his shoulder.

"I certainly shan't offend in that way."

"And you won't be a Radical?"

"No, not a Radical."

"I mean a man to follow Beales and Bright, a republican, a putter-down of the Church, a hater of the Throne. You won't take up that line, will you, Brooke?"

"It isn't my way at present, Aunt Stanbury. But a man shouldn't promise."

"Ah me! It makes me sad when I think what the country is coming to. I'm told there are scores of members of Parliament who don't pronounce their h's. When I was young, a member of Parliament used to be a gentleman;--and they've taken to ordaining all manner of people. It used to be the case that when you met a clergyman you met a gentleman. By-the-bye, Brooke, what do you think of Mr. Gibson?"

"Mr. Gibson! To tell the truth, I haven't thought much about him."

"But you must think about him. Perhaps you haven't thought about my niece, Dolly Stanbury?"

"I think that she's an uncommonly nice girl."

"She's not to be nice for you, young man. She's to be married to Mr. Gibson."

"Are they engaged?"

"Well, no; but I intend that they shall be. You won't begrudge that I should give my little savings to one of my own name?"

"You don't know me, Aunt Stanbury, if you think that I should begrudge anything that you might do with your money."

"Dolly has been here a month or two. I think it's three months since she came, and I do like her. She's soft and womanly, and hasn't taken up those vile, filthy habits which almost all the girls have adopted. Have you seen those Frenches with the things they have on their heads?"

"I was speaking to them yesterday."

"Nasty sluts! You can see the grease on their foreheads when they try to make their hair go back in the dirty French fashion. Dolly is not like that;--is she?"

"She is not in the least like either of the Miss Frenches."

"And now I want her to become Mrs. Gibson. He is quite taken."

"Is he?"

"Oh dear, yes. Didn't you see him the other night at dinner and afterwards? Of course he knows that I can give her a little bit of money, which always goes for something, Brooke. And I do think it would be such a nice thing for Dolly."

"And what does Dolly think about it?"

"There's the difficulty. She likes him well enough; I'm sure of that. And she has no stuck-up ideas about herself. She isn't one of those who think that almost nothing is good enough for them. But--"

"She has an objection."

"I don't know what it is. I sometimes think she is so bashful and modest she doesn't like to talk of being married,--even to an old woman like me."

"Dear me! That's not the way of the age;--is it, Aunt Stanbury?"

"It's coming to that, Brooke, that the girls will ask the men soon. Yes,--and that they won't take a refusal either. I do believe that Camilla French did ask Mr. Gibson."

"And what did Mr. Gibson say?"

"Ah;--I can't tell you that. He knows too well what he's about to take her. He's to come here on Friday at eleven, and you must be out of the way. I shall be out of the way too. But if Dolly says a word to you before that, mind you make her understand that she ought to accept Gibson."

"She's too good for him, according to my thinking."

"Don't you be a fool. How can any young woman be too good for a gentleman and a clergyman? Mr. Gibson is a gentleman. Do you know,--only you must not mention this,--that I have a kind of idea that we could get Nuncombe Putney for him. My father had the living, and my brother; and I should like it to go on in the family."

No opportunity came in the way of Brooke Burgess to say anything in favour of Mr. Gibson to Dorothy Stanbury. There did come to be very quickly a sort of intimacy between her and her aunt's favourite; but she was one not prone to talk about her own affairs. And as to such an affair as this,--a question as to whether she should or should not give herself in marriage to her suitor,--she, who could not speak of it even to her own sister without a blush, who felt confused and almost confounded when receiving her aunt's admonitions and instigations on the subject, would not have endured to hear Brooke Burgess speak on the matter. Dorothy did feel that a person easier to know than Brooke had never come in her way. She had already said as much to him as she had spoken to Mr. Gibson in the three months that she had made his acquaintance. They had talked about Exeter, and about Mrs. MacHugh, and the cathedral, and Tennyson's poems, and the London theatres, and Uncle Barty, and the family quarrel. They had become quite confidential with each other on some matters. But on this heavy subject of Mr. Gibson and his proposal of marriage not a word had been said. When Brooke once mentioned Mr. Gibson on the Thursday morning, Dorothy within a minute had taken an opportunity of escaping from the room.

But circumstances did give him an opportunity of speaking to Mr. Gibson. On the Wednesday afternoon both he and Mr. Gibson were invited to drink tea at Mrs. French's house on that evening. Such invitations at Exeter were wont to be given at short dates, and both the gentlemen had said that they would go. Then Arabella French had called in the Close and had asked Miss Stanbury and Dorothy. It was well understood by Arabella that Miss Stanbury herself would not drink tea at Heavitree. And it may be that Dorothy's company was not in truth desired. The ladies both declined. "Don't you stay at home for me, my dear," Miss Stanbury said to her niece. But Dorothy had not been out without her aunt since she had been at Exeter, and understood perfectly that it would not be wise to commence the practice at the house of the Frenches. "Mr. Brooke is coming, Miss Stanbury; and Mr. Gibson," Miss French said. And Miss Stanbury had thought that there was some triumph in her tone. "Mr. Brooke can go where he pleases, my dear," Miss Stanbury replied. "And as for Mr. Gibson, I am not his keeper." The tone in which Miss Stanbury spoke would have implied great imprudence, had not the two ladies understood each other so thoroughly, and had not each known that it was so.

There was the accustomed set of people in Mrs. French's drawing-room;--the Crumbies, and the Wrights, and the Apjohns. And Mrs. MacHugh came also,--knowing that there would be a rubber. "Their naked shoulders don't hurt me," Mrs. MacHugh said, when her friend almost scolded her for going to the house. "I'm not a young man. I don't care what they do to themselves." "You might say as much if they went naked altogether," Miss Stanbury had replied in anger. "If nobody else complained, I shouldn't," said Mrs. MacHugh. Mrs. MacHugh got her rubber; and as she had gone for her rubber, on a distinct promise that there should be a rubber, and as there was a rubber, she felt that she had no right to say ill-natured things. "What does it matter to me," said Mrs. MacHugh, "how nasty she is? She's not going to be my wife." "Ugh!" exclaimed Miss Stanbury, shaking her head both in anger and disgust.

Camilla French was by no means so bad as she was painted by Miss Stanbury, and Brooke Burgess rather liked her than otherwise. And it seemed to him that Mr. Gibson did not at all dislike Arabella, and felt no repugnance at either the lady's noddle or shoulders now that he was removed from Miss Stanbury's influence. It was clear enough also that Arabella had not given up the attempt, although she must have admitted to herself that the claims of Dorothy Stanbury were very strong. On this evening it seemed to have been specially permitted to Arabella, who was the elder sister, to take into her own hands the management of the case. Beholders of the game had hitherto declared that Mr. Gibson's safety was secured by the constant coupling of the sisters. Neither would allow the other to hunt alone. But a common sense of the common danger had made some special strategy necessary, and Camilla hardly spoke a word to Mr. Gibson during the evening. Let us hope that she found some temporary consolation in the presence of the stranger.

"I hope you are going to stay with us ever so long, Mr. Burgess?" said Camilla.

"A month. That is ever so long;--isn't it? Why I mean to see all Devonshire within that time. I feel already that I know Exeter thoroughly and everybody in it."

"I'm sure we are very much flattered."

"As for you, Miss French, I've heard so much about you all my life, that I felt that I knew you before I came here."

"Who can have spoken to you about me?"

"You forget how many relatives I have in the city. Do you think my Uncle Barty never writes to me?"

"Not about me."

"Does he not? And do you suppose I don't hear from Miss Stanbury?"

"But she hates me. I know that."

"And do you hate her?"

"No, indeed. I've the greatest respect for her. But she is a little odd; isn't she, now, Mr. Burgess? We all like her ever so much; and we've known her ever so long, six or seven years,--since we were quite young things. But she has such queer notions about girls."

"What sort of notions?"

"She'd like them all to dress just like herself; and she thinks that they should never talk to young men. If she was here she'd say I was flirting with you, because we're sitting together."

"But you are not; are you?"

"Of course I am not."

"I wish you would," said Brooke.

"I shouldn't know how to begin. I shouldn't indeed. I don't know what flirting means, and I don't know who does know. When young ladies and gentlemen go out, I suppose they are intended to talk to each other."

"But very often they don't, you know."

"I call that stupid," said Camilla. "And yet, when they do, all the old maids say that the girls are flirting. I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Burgess. I don't care what any old maid says about me. I always talk to people that I like, and if they choose to call me a flirt, they may. It's my opinion that still waters run the deepest."

"No doubt the noisy streams are very shallow," said Brooke.

"You may call me a shallow stream if you like, Mr. Burgess."

"I meant nothing of the kind."

"But what do you call Dorothy Stanbury? That's what I call still water. She runs deep enough."

"The quietest young lady I ever saw in my life."

"Exactly. So quiet, but so--clever. What do you think of Mr. Gibson?"

"Everybody is asking me what I think of Mr. Gibson."

"You know what they say. They say he is to marry Dorothy Stanbury. Poor man! I don't think his own consent has ever been asked yet;--but, nevertheless, it's settled."

"Just at present he seems to me to be,--what shall I say?--I oughtn't to say flirting with your sister; ought I?"

"Miss Stanbury would say so if she were here, no doubt. But the fact is, Mr. Burgess, we've known him almost since we were infants, and of course we take an interest in his welfare. There has never been anything more than that. Arabella is nothing more to him than I am. Once, indeed--; but, however--; that does not signify. It would be nothing to us, if he really liked Dorothy Stanbury. But as far as we can see,--and we do see a good deal of him,--there is no such feeling on his part. Of course we haven't asked. We should not think of such a thing. Mr. Gibson may do just as he likes for us. But I am not quite sure that Dorothy Stanbury is just the girl that would make him a good wife. Of course when you've known a person seven or eight years you do get anxious about his happiness. Do you know, we think her,--perhaps a little,--sly."

In the meantime, Mr. Gibson was completely subject to the individual charms of Arabella. Camilla had been quite correct in a part of her description of their intimacy. She and her sister had known Mr. Gibson for seven or eight years; but nevertheless the intimacy could not with truth be said to have commenced during the infancy of the young ladies, even if the word were used in its legal sense. Seven or eight years, however, is a long acquaintance; and there was, perhaps, something of a real grievance in this Stanbury intervention. If it be a recognised fact in society that young ladies are in want of husbands, and that an effort on their part towards matrimony is not altogether impossible, it must be recognised also that failure will be disagreeable, and interference regarded with animosity. Miss Stanbury the elder was undoubtedly interfering between Mr. Gibson and the Frenches; and it is neither manly nor womanly to submit to interference with one's dearest prospects. It may, perhaps, be admitted that the Miss Frenches had shown too much open ardour in their pursuit of Mr. Gibson. Perhaps there should have been no ardour and no pursuit. It may be that the theory of womanhood is right which forbids to women any such attempts,--which teaches them that they must ever be pursued, never the pursuers. As to that there shall be no discourse at present. But it must be granted that whenever the pursuit has been attempted, it is not in human nature to abandon it without an effort. That the French girls should be very angry with Miss Stanbury, that they should put their heads together with the intention of thwarting her, that they should think evil things of poor Dorothy, that they should half despise Mr. Gibson, and yet resolve to keep their hold upon him as a chattel and a thing of value that was almost their own, was not perhaps much to their discredit.

"You are a good deal at the house in the Close now," said Arabella, in her lowest voice,--in a voice so low that it was almost melancholy.

"Well; yes. Miss Stanbury, you know, has always been a staunch friend of mine. And she takes an interest in my little church." People say that girls are sly; but men can be sly, too, sometimes.

"It seems that she has taken you so much away from us, Mr. Gibson."

"I don't know why you should say that, Miss French."

"Perhaps I am wrong. One is apt to be sensitive about one's friends. We seem to have known you so well. There is nobody else in Exeter that mamma regards as she does you. But, of course, if you are happy with Miss Stanbury that is everything."

"I am speaking of the old lady," said Mr. Gibson, who, in spite of his slyness, was here thrown a little off his guard.

"And I am speaking of the old lady too," said Arabella. "Of whom else should I be speaking?"

"No;--of course not."

"Of course," continued Arabella, "I hear what people say about the niece. One cannot help what one hears, you know, Mr. Gibson; but I don't believe that, I can assure you." As she said this, she looked into his face, as though waiting for an answer; but Mr. Gibson had no answer ready. Then Arabella told herself that if anything was to be done it must be done at once. What use was there in beating round the bush, when the only chance of getting the game was to be had by dashing at once into the thicket. "I own I should be glad," she said, turning her eyes away from him, "if I could hear from your own mouth that it is not true."

Mr. Gibson's position was one not to be envied. Were he willing to tell the very secrets of his soul to Miss French with the utmost candour, he could not answer her question either one way or the other, and he was not willing to tell her any of his secrets. It was certainly the fact, too, that there had been tender passages between him and Arabella. Now, when there have been such passages, and the gentleman is cross-examined by the lady, as Mr. Gibson was being cross-examined at the present moment,--the gentleman usually teaches himself to think that a little falsehood is permissible. A gentleman can hardly tell a lady that he has become tired of her, and has changed his mind. He feels the matter, perhaps, more keenly even than she does; and though, at all other times he may be a very Paladin in the cause of truth, in such strait as this he does allow himself some latitude.

"You are only joking, of course," he said.

"Indeed, I am not joking. I can assure you, Mr. Gibson, that the welfare of the friends whom I really love can never be a matter of joke to me. Mrs. Crumbie says that you positively are engaged to marry Dorothy Stanbury."

"What does Mrs. Crumbie know about it?"

"I dare say, nothing. It is not so;--is it?"

"Certainly not."

"And there is nothing in it;--is there?"

"I wonder why people make these reports," said Mr. Gibson, prevaricating.

"It is a fabrication from beginning to end then," said Arabella, pressing the matter quite home. At this time she was very close to him, and though her words were severe, the glance from her eyes was soft. And the scent from her hair was not objectionable to him, as it would have been to Miss Stanbury. And the mode of her head-dress was not displeasing to him. And the folds of her dress, as they fell across his knee, were welcome to his feelings. He knew that he was as one under temptation, but he was not strong enough to bid the tempter avaunt. "Say that it is so, Mr. Gibson!"

"Of course, it is not so," said Mr. Gibson--lying.

"I am so glad. For of course, Mr. Gibson, when we heard it we thought a great deal about it. A man's happiness depends so much on whom he marries;--doesn't it? And a clergyman's more than anybody else's. And we didn't think she was quite the sort of woman that you would like. You see, she has had no advantages, poor thing. She has been shut up in a little country cottage all her life;--just a labourer's hovel, no more;--and though it wasn't her fault, of course, and we all pitied her, and were so glad when Miss Stanbury brought her to the Close;--still, you know, though one was very glad of her as an acquaintance, yet, you know, as a wife,--and for such a dear, dear friend--" She went on, and said many other things with equal enthusiasm, and then wiped her eyes, and then smiled and laughed. After that she declared that she was quite happy,--so happy; and so she left him. The poor man, after the falsehood had been extracted from him, said nothing more; but sat, in patience, listening to the raptures and enthusiasm of his friend. He knew that he had disgraced himself, and he knew also that his disgrace would be known, if Dorothy Stanbury should accept his offer on the morrow. And yet how hardly he had been used! What answer could he have given compatible both with the truth and with his own personal dignity?

About half an hour afterwards he was walking back to Exeter with Brooke Burgess, and then Brooke did ask him a question or two.

"Nice girls those Frenches, I think," said Brooke.

"Very nice," said Mr. Gibson.

"How Miss Stanbury does hate them," says Brooke.

"Not hate them, I hope," said Mr. Gibson.

"She doesn't love them;--does she?"

"Well, as for love;--yes; in one sense,--I hope she does. Miss Stanbury, you know, is a woman who expresses herself strongly."

"What would she say, if she were told that you and I were going to marry those two girls? We are both favourites, you know."

"Dear me! What a very odd supposition," said Mr. Gibson.

"For my part, I don't think I shall," said Brooke.

"I don't suppose I shall either," said Mr. Gibson, with a gravity which was intended to convey some smattering of rebuke.

"A fellow might do worse, you know," said Brooke. "For my part, I rather like girls with chignons, and all that sort of get-up. But the worst of it is, one can't marry two at a time."

"That would be bigamy," said Mr. Gibson.

"Just so," said Brooke.

XXXVI. MISS STANBURY'S WRATH

Punctually at eleven o'clock on the Friday morning Mr. Gibson knocked at the door of the house in the Close. The reader must not imagine that he had ever wavered in his intention with regard to Dorothy Stanbury, because he had been driven into a corner by the pertinacious ingenuity of Miss French. He never for a moment thought of being false to Miss Stanbury the elder. Falseness of that nature would have been ruinous to him,--would have made him a marked man in the city all his days, and would probably have reached even to the bishop's ears. He was neither bad enough, nor audacious enough, nor foolish enough, for such perjury as that. And, moreover, though the wiles of Arabella had been potent with him, he very much preferred Dorothy Stanbury. Seven years of flirtation with a young lady is more trying to the affection than any duration of matrimony. Arabella had managed to awaken something of the old glow, but Mr. Gibson, as soon as he was alone, turned from her mentally in disgust. No! Whatever little trouble there might be in his way, it was clearly his duty to marry Dorothy Stanbury. She had the sweetest temper in the world, and blushed with the prettiest blush! She would have, moreover, two thousand pounds on the day she married, and there was no saying what other and greater pecuniary advantages might follow. His mind was quite made up; and during the whole morning he had been endeavouring to drive all disagreeable reminiscences of Miss French from his memory, and to arrange the words with which he would make his offer to Dorothy. He was aware that he need not be very particular about his words, as Dorothy, from the bashfulness of her nature, would be no judge of eloquence at such a time. But still, for his own sake, there should be some form of expression, some propriety of diction. Before eleven o'clock he had it all by heart, and had nearly freed himself from the uneasiness of his falsehood to Arabella. He had given much serious thought to the matter, and had quite resolved that he was right in his purpose, and that he could marry Dorothy with a pure conscience, and with a true promise of a husband's love. "Dear Dolly!" he said to himself, with something of enthusiasm as he walked across the Close. And he looked up to the house as he came to it. There was to be his future home. There was not one of the prebends who had a better house. And there was a dove-like softness about Dorothy's eyes, and a winning obedience in her manner, that were charming. His lines had fallen to him in very pleasant places. Yes;--he would go up to her, and take her at once by the hand, and ask her whether she would be his, now and for ever. He would not let go her hand till he had brought her so close to him that she could hide her blushes on his shoulder. The whole thing had been so well conceived, had become so clear to his mind, that he felt no hesitation or embarrassment as he knocked at the door. Arabella French would, no doubt, hear of it soon. Well;--she must hear of it. After all she could do him no injury.

He was shown up at once into the drawing-room, and there he found--Miss Stanbury the elder. "Oh, Mr. Gibson!" she said at once.

"Is anything the matter with--dear Dorothy?"

"She is the most obstinate, pig-headed young woman I ever came across since the world began."

"You don't say so! But what is it, Miss Stanbury?"

"What is it? Why just this. Nothing on earth that I can say to her will induce her to come down and speak to you."

"Have I offended her?"

"Offended a fiddlestick! Offence indeed! An offer from an honest man, with her friends' approval, and a fortune at her back, as though she had been born with a gold spoon in her mouth! And she tells me that she can't, and won't, and wouldn't, and shouldn't, as though I were asking her to walk the streets. I declare I don't know what has come to the young women;--or what it is they want. One would have thought that butter wouldn't melt in her mouth."

"But what is the reason, Miss Stanbury?"

"Oh, reason! You don't suppose people give reasons in these days. What reason have they when they dress themselves up with bandboxes on their sconces? Just simply the old reason--'I do not like thee, Dr. Fell;--why I cannot tell.'"

"May I not see her myself, Miss Stanbury?"

"I can't make her come down-stairs to you. I've been at her the whole morning, Mr. Gibson. Ever since daylight, pretty nearly. She came into my room before I was up, and told me she had made up her mind. I've coaxed, and scolded, and threatened, and cried;--but if she'd been a milestone it couldn't have been of less use. I told her she might go back to Nuncombe, and she just went off to pack up."

"But she's not to go?"

"How can I say what such a young woman will do? I'm never allowed a way of my own for a moment. There's Brooke Burgess been scolding me at that rate I didn't know whether I stood on my head or my heels. And I don't know now."

Then there was a pause, while Mr. Gibson was endeavouring to decide what would now be his best course of action. "Don't you think she'll ever come round, Miss Stanbury?"

"I don't think she'll ever come any way that anybody wants her to come, Mr. Gibson."

"I didn't think she was at all like that," said Mr. Gibson, almost in tears.

"No,--nor anybody else. I've been seeing it come all the same. It's just the Stanbury perversity. If I'd wanted to keep her by herself, to take care of me, and had set my back up at her if she spoke to a man, and made her understand that she wasn't to think of getting married, she'd have been making eyes at every man that came into the house. It's just what one gets for going out of one's way. I did think she'd be so happy, Mr. Gibson, living here as your wife. She and I between us could have managed for you so nicely."

Mr. Gibson was silent for a minute or two, during which he walked up and down the room,--contemplating, no doubt, the picture of married life which Miss Stanbury had painted for him,--a picture which, as it seemed, was not to be realised. "And what had I better do, Miss Stanbury?" he asked at last.

"Do! I don't know what you're to do. I'm groom enough to bring a mare to water, but I can't make her drink."

"Will waiting be any good?"

"How can I say? I'll tell you one thing not to do. Don't go and philander with those girls at Heavitree. It's my belief that Dorothy has been thinking of them. People talk to her, of course."

"I wish people would hold their tongues. People are so indiscreet. People don't know how much harm they may do."

"You've given them some excuse, you know, Mr. Gibson."

This was very ill-natured, and was felt by Mr. Gibson to be so rude, that he almost turned upon his patroness in anger. He had known Dolly for not more than three months, and had devoted himself to her, to the great anger of his older friends. He had come this morning true to his appointment, expecting that others would keep their promises to him, as he was ready to keep those which he had made;--and now he was told that it was his fault! "I do think that's rather hard, Miss Stanbury," he said.

"So you have," said she;--"nasty, slatternly girls, without an idea inside their noddles. But it's no use your scolding me."

"I didn't mean to scold, Miss Stanbury."

"I've done all that I could."

"And you think she won't see me for a minute?"

"She says she won't. I can't bid Martha carry her down."

"Then, perhaps, I had better leave you for the present," said Mr. Gibson, after another pause. So he went, a melancholy, blighted man. Leaving the Close, he passed through into Southernhay, and walked across by the new streets towards the Heavitree road. He had no design in taking this route, but he went on till he came in sight of the house in which Mrs. French lived. As he walked slowly by it, he looked up at the windows, and something of a feeling of romance came across his heart. Were his young affections buried there, or were they not? And, if so, with which of those fair girls were they buried? For the last two years, up to last night, Camilla had certainly been in the ascendant. But Arabella was a sweet young woman; and there had been a time,--when those tender passages were going on,--in which he had thought that no young woman ever was so sweet. A period of romance, an era of enthusiasm, a short-lived, delicious holiday of hot-tongued insanity had been permitted to him in his youth;--but all that was now over. And yet here he was, with three strings to his bow,--so he told himself,--and he had not as yet settled for himself the great business of matrimony. He was inclined to think, as he walked on, that he would walk his life alone, an active, useful, but a melancholy man. After such experiences as his, how should he ever again speak of his heart to a woman? During this walk, his mind recurred frequently to Dorothy Stanbury; and, doubtless, he thought that he had often spoken of his heart to her. He was back at his lodgings before three, at which hour he ate an early dinner, and then took the afternoon cathedral service at four. The evening he spent at home, thinking of the romance of his early days. What would Miss Stanbury have said, had she seen him in his easy chair behind the "Exeter Argus,"--with a pipe in his mouth?

In the meantime, there was an uncomfortable scene in progress between Dorothy and her aunt. Brooke Burgess, as desired, had left the house before eleven, having taken upon himself, when consulted, to say in the mildest terms, that he thought that, in general, young women should not be asked to marry if they did not like to;--which opinion had been so galling to Miss Stanbury that she had declared that he had so scolded her, that she did not know whether she was standing on her head or her heels. As soon as Mr. Gibson left her, she sat herself down, and fairly cried. She had ardently desired this thing, and had allowed herself to think of her desire as of one that would certainly be accomplished. Dorothy would have been so happy as the wife of a clergyman! Miss Stanbury's standard for men and women was not high. She did not expect others to be as self-sacrificing, as charitable, and as good as herself. It was not that she gave to herself credit for such virtues; but she thought of herself as one who, from the peculiar circumstances of life, was bound to do much for others. There was no end to her doing good for others,--if only the others would allow themselves to be governed by her. She did not think that Mr. Gibson was a great divine; but she perceived that he was a clergyman, living decently,--of that secret pipe Miss Stanbury knew nothing,--doing his duty punctually, and, as she thought, very much in want of a wife. Then there was her niece, Dolly,--soft, pretty, feminine, without a shilling, and much in want of some one to comfort and take care of her. What could be better than such a marriage! And the overthrow to the girls with the big chignons would be so complete! She had set her mind upon it, and now Dorothy said that it couldn't, and it wouldn't, and it shouldn't be accomplished! She was to be thrown over by this chit of a girl, as she had been thrown over by the girl's brother! And, when she complained, the girl simply offered to go away!

At about twelve Dorothy came creeping down into the room in which her aunt was sitting, and pretended to occupy herself on some piece of work. For a considerable time,--for three minutes perhaps,--Miss Stanbury did not speak. She had resolved that she would not speak to her niece again,--at least, not for that day. She would let the ungrateful girl know how miserable she had been made. But at the close of the three minutes her patience was exhausted. "What are you doing there?" she said.

"I am quilting your cap, Aunt Stanbury."

"Put it down. You shan't do anything for me. I won't have you touch my things any more. I don't like pretended service."

"It is not pretended, Aunt Stanbury."

"I say it is pretended. Why did you pretend to me that you would have him when you had made up your mind against it all the time?"

"But I hadn't--made up my mind."

"If you had so much doubt about it, you might have done what I wanted you."

"I couldn't, Aunt Stanbury."

"You mean you wouldn't. I wonder what it is you do expect."

"I don't expect anything, Aunt Stanbury."

"No; and I don't expect anything. What an old fool I am ever to look for any comfort. Why should I think that anybody would care for me?"

"Indeed, I do care for you."

"In what sort of way do you show it? You're just like your brother Hugh. I've disgraced myself to that man,--promising what I could not perform. I declare it makes me sick when I think of it. Why did you not tell me at once?" Dorothy said nothing further, but sat with the cap on her lap. She did not dare to resume her needle, and she did not like to put the cap aside, as by doing so it would seem as though she had accepted her aunt's prohibition against her work. For half an hour she sat thus, during which time Miss Stanbury dropped asleep. She woke with a start, and began to scold again. "What's the good of sitting there all the day, with your hands before you, doing nothing?"

But Dorothy had been very busy. She had been making up her mind, and had determined to communicate her resolution to her aunt. "Dear aunt," she said, "I have been thinking of something."

"It's too late now," said Miss Stanbury.

"I see I've made you very unhappy."

"Of course you have."

"And you think that I'm ungrateful. I'm not ungrateful, and I don't think that Hugh is."

"Never mind Hugh."

"Only because it seems so hard that you should take so much trouble about us, and that then there should be so much vexation."

"I find it very hard."

"So I think that I'd better go back to Nuncombe."

"That's what you call gratitude."

"I don't like to stay here and make you unhappy. I can't think that I ought to have done what you asked me, because I did not feel at all in that way about Mr. Gibson. But as I have only disappointed you, it will be better that I should go home. I have been very happy here,--very."

"Bother!" exclaimed Miss Stanbury.

"I have,--and I do love you, though you won't believe it. But I am sure I oughtn't to remain to make you unhappy. I shall never forget all that you have done for me; and though you call me ungrateful, I am not. But I know that I ought not to stay, as I cannot do what you wish. So, if you please, I will go back to Nuncombe."

"You'll not do anything of the kind," said Miss Stanbury.

"But it will be better."

"Yes, of course; no doubt. I suppose you're tired of us all."

"It is not that I'm tired, Aunt Stanbury. It isn't that at all." Dorothy had now become red up to the roots of her hair, and her eyes were full of tears. "But I cannot stay where people think that I am ungrateful. If you please, Aunt Stanbury, I will go." Then, of course, there was a compromise. Dorothy did at last consent to remain in the Close, but only on condition that she should be forgiven for her sin in reference to Mr. Gibson, and be permitted to go on with her aunt's cap.

XXXVII. MONT CENIS

The night had been fine and warm, and it was now noon on a fine September day when the train from Paris reached St. Michael, on the route to Italy by Mont Cenis,--as all the world knows St. Michael is, or was a year or two back, the end of railway travelling in that direction. At the time Mr. Fell's grand project of carrying a line of rails over the top of the mountain was only in preparation, and the journey from St. Michael to Susa was still made by the diligences,--those dear old continental coaches which are now nearly as extinct as our own, but which did not deserve death so fully as did our abominable vehicles. The coupe of a diligence, or better still, the banquette, was a luxurious mode of travelling as compared with anything that our coaches offered. There used indeed to be a certain halo of glory round the occupant of the box of a mail-coach. The man who had secured that seat was supposed to know something about the world, and to be such a one that the passengers sitting behind him would be proud to be allowed to talk to him. But the prestige of the position was greater than the comfort. A night on the box of a mail-coach was but a bad time, and a night inside a mail-coach was a night in purgatory. Whereas a seat up above, on the banquette of a diligence passing over the Alps, with room for the feet, and support for the back, with plenty of rugs and plenty of tobacco, used to be on the Mont Cenis, and still is on some other mountain passes, a very comfortable mode of seeing a mountain route. For those desirous of occupying the coupe, or the three front seats of the body of the vehicle, it must be admitted that difficulties frequently arose; and that such difficulties were very common at St. Michael. There would be two or three of those enormous vehicles preparing to start for the mountain, whereas it would appear that twelve or fifteen passengers had come down from Paris armed with tickets assuring them that this preferable mode of travelling should be theirs. And then assertions would be made, somewhat recklessly, by the officials, to the effect that all the diligence was coupe. It would generally be the case that some middle-aged Englishman who could not speak French would go to the wall, together with his wife. Middle-aged Englishmen with their wives, who can't speak French, can nevertheless be very angry, and threaten loudly, when they suppose themselves to be ill-treated. A middle-aged Englishman, though he can't speak a word of French, won't believe a French official who tells him that the diligence is all coupe, when he finds himself with his unfortunate partner in a roundabout place behind with two priests, a dirty man who looks like a brigand, a sick maid-servant, and three agricultural labourers. The attempt, however, was frequently made, and thus there used to be occasionally a little noise round the bureau at St. Michael.

On the morning of which we are speaking two Englishmen had just made good their claim, each independently of the other, each without having heard or seen the other, when two American ladies, coming up very tardily, endeavoured to prove their rights. The ladies were without other companions, and were not fluent with their French, but were clearly entitled to their seats. They were told that the conveyance was all coupe, but perversely would not believe the statement. The official shrugged his shoulders and signified that his ultimatum had been pronounced. What can an official do in such circumstances, when more coupe passengers are sent to him than the coupes at his command will hold? "But we have paid for the coupe," said the elder American lady, with considerable indignation, though her French was imperfect;--for American ladies understand their rights. "Bah; yes; you have paid and you shall go. What would you have?" "We would have what we have paid for," said the American lady. Then the official rose from his stool and shrugged his shoulders again, and made a motion with both his hands, intended to shew that the thing was finished. "It is a robbery," said the elder American lady to the younger. "I should not mind, only you are so unwell." "It will not kill me, I dare say," said the younger. Then one of the English gentlemen declared that his place was very much at the service of the invalid,--and the other Englishman declared that his also was at the service of the invalid's companion. Then, and not till then, the two men recognised each other. One was Mr. Glascock, on his way to Naples, and the other was Mr. Trevelyan, on his way,--he knew not whither.

Upon this, of course, they spoke to each other. In London they had been well acquainted, each having been an intimate guest at the house of old Lady Milborough. And each knew something of the other's recent history. Mr. Glascock was aware, as was all the world, that Trevelyan had quarrelled with his wife; and Trevelyan was aware that Mr. Glascock had been spoken of as a suitor to his own sister-in-law. Of that visit which Mr. Glascock had made to Nuncombe Putney, and of the manner in which Nora had behaved to her lover, Trevelyan knew nothing. Their greetings spoken, their first topic of conversation was, of course, the injury proposed to be done to the American ladies, and which would now fall upon them. They went into the waiting-room together, and during such toilet as they could make there, grumbled furiously. They would take post horses over the mountain, not from any love of solitary grandeur, but in order that they might make the company pay for its iniquity. But it was soon apparent to them that they themselves had no ground of complaint, and as everybody was very civil, and as a seat in the banquette over the heads of the American ladies was provided for them, and as the man from the bureau came and apologised, they consented to be pacified, and ended, of course, by tipping half-a-dozen of the servants about the yard. Mr. Glascock had a man of his own with him, who was very nearly being put on to the same seat with his master as an extra civility; but this inconvenience was at last avoided. Having settled these little difficulties, they went into breakfast in the buffet.

There could be no better breakfast than used to be given in the buffet at the railway terminus at St. Michael. The company might occasionally be led into errors about that question of coupe seats, but in reference to their provisions, they set an example which might be of great use to us here in England. It is probably the case that breakfasts for travellers are not so frequently needed here as they are on the Continent; but, still, there is often to be found a crowd of people ready to eat if only the wherewithal were there. We are often told in our newspapers that England is disgraced by this and by that; by the unreadiness of our army, by the unfitness of our navy, by the irrationality of our laws, by the immobility of our prejudices, and what not; but the real disgrace of England is the railway sandwich,--that whited sepulchre, fair enough outside, but so meagre, poor, and spiritless within, such a thing of shreds and parings, such a dab of food, telling us that the poor bone whence it was scraped had been made utterly bare before it was sent into the kitchen for the soup pot. In France one does get food at the railway stations, and at St. Michael the breakfast was unexceptional.

Our two friends seated themselves near to the American ladies, and were, of course, thanked for their politeness. American women are taught by the habits of their country to think that men should give way to them more absolutely than is in accordance with the practices of life in Europe. A seat in a public conveyance in the States, when merely occupied by a man, used to be regarded by any woman as being at her service as completely as though it were vacant. One woman indicating a place to another would point with equal freedom to a man or a space. It is said that this is a little altered now, and that European views on this subject are spreading themselves. Our two ladies, however, who were pretty, clever-looking, and attractive even after the night's journey, were manifestly more impressed with the villainy of the French officials than they were with the kindness of their English neighbours.

"And nothing can be done to punish them?" said the younger of them to Mr. Glascock.

"Nothing, I should think," said he. "Nothing will, at any rate."

"And you will not get back your money?" said the elder,--who, though the elder, was probably not much above twenty.

"Well;--no. Time is money, they say. It would take thrice the value of the time in money, and then one would probably fail. They have done very well for us, and I suppose there are difficulties."

"It couldn't have taken place in our country," said the younger lady. "All the same, we are very much obliged to you. It would not have been nice for us to have to go up into the banquette."

"They would have put you into the interior."

"And that would have been worse. I hate being put anywhere,--as if I were a sheep. It seems so odd to us, that you here should be all so tame."

"Do you mean the English or the French, or the world in general on this side of the Atlantic?"

"We mean Europeans," said the younger lady, who was better after her breakfast. "But then we think that the French have something of compensation, in their manners, and their ways of life, their climate, the beauty of their cities, and their general management of things."

"They are very great in many ways, no doubt," said Mr. Glascock.

"They do understand living better than you do," said the elder.

"Everything is so much brighter with them," said the younger.

"They contrive to give a grace to every-day existence," said the elder.

"There is such a welcome among them for strangers," said the younger.

"Particularly in reference to places taken in the coupe," said Trevelyan, who had hardly spoken before.

"Ah, that is an affair of honesty," said the elder. "If we want honesty, I believe we must go back to the stars and stripes."

Mr. Glascock looked up from his plate almost aghast. He said nothing, however, but called for the waiter, and paid for his breakfast. Nevertheless, there was a considerable amount of travelling friendship engendered between the ladies and our two friends before the diligence had left the railway yard. They were two Miss Spaldings, going on to Florence, at which place they had an uncle, who was minister from the States to the kingdom of Italy; and they were not at all unwilling to receive such little civilities as gentlemen can give to ladies when travelling. The whole party intended to sleep at Turin that night, and they were altogether on good terms with each other when they started on the journey from St. Michael.

"Clever women those," said Mr. Glascock, as soon as they had arranged their legs and arms in the banquette.

"Yes, indeed."

"American women always are clever,--and are almost always pretty."

"I do not like them," said Trevelyan,--who in these days was in a mood to like nothing. "They are exigeant;--and then they are so hard. They want the weakness that a woman ought to have."

"That comes from what they would call your insular prejudice. We are accustomed to less self-assertion on the part of women than is customary with them. We prefer women to rule us by seeming to yield. In the States, as I take it, the women never yield, and the men have to fight their own battles with other tactics."

"I don't know what their tactics are."

"They keep their distance. The men live much by themselves, as though they knew they would not have a chance in the presence of their wives and daughters. Nevertheless they don't manage these things badly. You very rarely hear of an American being separated from his wife."

The words were no sooner out of his mouth, than Mr. Glascock knew, and remembered, and felt what he had said. There are occasions in which a man sins so deeply against fitness and the circumstances of the hour, that it becomes impossible for him to slur over his sin as though it had not been committed. There are certain little peccadilloes in society which one can manage to throw behind one,--perhaps with some difficulty, and awkwardness; but still they are put aside, and conversation goes on, though with a hitch. But there are graver offences, the gravity of which strikes the offender so seriously that it becomes impossible for him to seem even to ignore his own iniquity. Ashes must be eaten publicly, and sackcloth worn before the eyes of men. It was so now with poor Mr. Glascock. He thought about it for a moment,--whether or no it was possible that he should continue his remarks about the American ladies, without betraying his own consciousness of the thing that he had done; and he found that it was quite impossible. He knew that he was red up to his hairs, and hot, and that his blood tingled. His blushes, indeed, would not be seen in the seclusion of the banquette; but he could not overcome the heat and the tingling. There was silence for about three minutes, and then he felt that it would be best for him to confess his own fault. "Trevelyan," he said, "I am very sorry for the allusion that I made. I ought to have been less awkward, and I beg your pardon."

"It does not matter," said Trevelyan. "Of course I know that everybody is talking of it behind my back. I am not to expect that people will be silent because I am unhappy."

"Nevertheless I beg your pardon," said the other.

There was but little further conversation between them till they reached Lanslebourg, at the foot of the mountain, at which place they occupied themselves with getting coffee for the two American ladies. The Miss Spaldings took their coffee almost with as much grace as though it had been handed to them by Frenchmen. And indeed they were very gracious,--as is the nature of American ladies in spite of that hardness of which Trevelyan had complained. They assume an intimacy readily, with no appearance of impropriety, and are at their ease easily. When, therefore, they were handed out of their carriage by Mr. Glascock, the bystanders at Lanslebourg might have thought that the whole party had been travelling together from New York. "What should we have done if you hadn't taken pity on us?" said the elder lady. "I don't think we could have climbed up into that high place; and look at the crowd that have come out of the interior. A man has some advantages after all."

"I am quite in the dark as to what they are," said Mr. Glascock.

"He can give up his place to a lady, and can climb up into a banquette."

"And he can be a member of Congress," said the younger. "I'd sooner be senator from Massachusetts than be the Queen of England."

"So would I," said Mr. Glascock. "I'm glad we can agree about one thing."

The two gentlemen agreed to walk up the mountain together, and with some trouble induced the conductor to permit them to do so. Why conductors of diligences should object to such relief to their horses the ordinary Englishman can hardly understand. But in truth they feel so deeply the responsibility which attaches itself to their shepherding of their sheep, that they are always fearing lest some poor lamb should go astray on the mountain side. And though the road be broad and very plainly marked, the conductor never feels secure that his passenger will find his way safely to the summit. He likes to know that each of his flock is in his right place, and disapproves altogether of an erratic spirit. But Mr. Glascock at last prevailed, and the two men started together up the mountain. When the permission has been once obtained the walker may be sure that his guide and shepherd will not desert him.

"Of course I know," said Trevelyan, when the third twist up the mountain had been overcome, "that people talk about me and my wife. It is a part of the punishment for the mistake that one makes."

"It is a sad affair altogether."

"The saddest in the world. Lady Milborough has no doubt spoken to you about it."

"Well;--yes; she has."

"How could she help it? I am not such a fool as to suppose that people are to hold their tongues about me more than they do about others. Intimate as she is with you, of course she has spoken to you."

"I was in hopes that something might have been done by this time."

"Nothing has been done. Sometimes I think I shall put an end to myself, it makes me so wretched."

"Then why don't you agree to forget and forgive and have done with it?"

"That is so easily said;--so easily said." After this they walked on in silence for a considerable distance. Mr. Glascock was not anxious to talk about Trevelyan's wife, but he did wish to ask a question or two about Mrs. Trevelyan's sister, if only this could be done without telling too much of his own secret. "There's nothing I think so grand, as walking up a mountain," he said after a while.

"It's all very well," said Trevelyan, in a tone which seemed to imply that to him in his present miserable condition all recreations, exercises, and occupations were mere leather and prunella.

"I don't mean, you know, in the Alpine Club way," said Glascock. "I'm too old and too stiff for that. But when the path is good, and the air not too cold, and when it is neither snowing, nor thawing, nor raining, and when the sun isn't hot, and you've got plenty of time, and know that you can stop any moment you like and be pushed up by a carriage, I do think walking up a mountain is very fine,--if you've got proper shoes, and a good stick, and it isn't too soon after dinner. There's nothing like the air of Alps." And Mr. Glascock renewed his pace, and stretched himself against the hill at the rate of three miles an hour.

"I used to be very fond of Switzerland," said Trevelyan, "but I don't care about it now. My eye has lost all its taste."

"It isn't the eye," said Glascock.

"Well; no. The truth is that when one is absolutely unhappy one cannot revel in the imagination. I don't believe in the miseries of poets."

"I think myself," said Glascock, "that a poet should have a good digestion. By-the-bye, Mrs. Trevelyan and her sister went down to Nuncombe Putney, in Devonshire."

"They did go there."

"Have they moved since? A very pretty place is Nuncombe Putney."

"You have been there then?"

Mr. Glascock blushed again. He was certainly an awkward man, saying things that he ought not to say, and telling secrets which ought not to have been told. "Well;--yes. I have been there,--as it happens."

"Just lately do you mean?"

Mr. Glascock paused, hoping to find his way out of the scrape, but soon perceived that there was no way out. He could not lie, even in an affair of love, and was altogether destitute of those honest subterfuges,--subterfuges honest in such position,--of which a dozen would have been at once at the command of any woman, and with one of which, sufficient for the moment, most men would have been able to arm themselves. "Indeed, yes," he said, almost stammering as he spoke. "It was lately;--since your wife went there." Trevelyan, though he had been told of the possibility of Mr. Glascock's courtship, felt himself almost aggrieved by this man's intrusion on his wife's retreat. Had he not sent her there that she might be private; and what right had any one to invade such privacy? "I suppose I had better tell the truth at once," said Mr. Glascock. "I went to see Miss Rowley."

"Oh, indeed."

"My secret will be safe with you, I know."

"I did not know that there was a secret," said Trevelyan. "I should have thought that they would have told me."

"I don't see that. However, it doesn't matter much. I got nothing by my journey. Are the ladies still at Nuncombe Putney?"

"No, they have moved from there to London."

"Not back to Curzon Street?"

"Oh dear, no. There is no house in Curzon Street for them now." This was said in a tone so sad that it almost made Mr. Glascock weep. "They are staying with an aunt of theirs,--out to the east of the city."

"At St. Diddulph's?"

"Yes;--with Mr. Outhouse, the clergyman there. You can't conceive what it is not to be able to see your own child; and yet, how can I take the boy from her?"

"Of course not. He's only a baby."

"And yet all this is brought on me solely by her obstinacy. God knows, however, I don't want to say a word against her. People choose to say that I am to blame, and they may say so for me. Nothing that any one may say can add anything to the weight that I have to bear." Then they walked to the top of the mountain in silence, and in due time were picked up by their proper shepherd and carried down to Susa at a pace that would give an English coachman a concussion of the brain.

Why passengers for Turin, who reach Susa dusty, tired, and sleepy, should be detained at that place for an hour and a half instead of being forwarded to their beds in the great city, is never made very apparent. All travelling officials on the continent of Europe are very slow in their manipulation of luggage; but as they are equally correct we will find the excuse for their tardiness in the latter quality. The hour and a half, however, is a necessity, and it is very grievous. On this occasion the two Miss Spaldings ate their supper, and the two gentlemen waited on them. The ladies had learned to regard at any rate Mr. Glascock as their own property, and received his services, graciously indeed, but quite as a matter of course. When he was sent from their peculiar corner of the big, dirty refreshment room to the supper-table to fetch an apple, and then desired to change it because the one which he had brought was spotted, he rather liked it. And when he sat down with his knees near to theirs, actually trying to eat a large Italian apple himself simply because they had eaten one, and discussed with them the passage over the Mont Cenis, he began to think that Susa was, after all, a place in which an hour and a half might be whiled away without much cause for complaint.

"We only stay one night at Turin," said Caroline Spalding, the elder.

"And we shall have to start at ten,--to get through to Florence to-morrow," said Olivia, the younger. "Isn't it cruel, wasting all this time when we might be in bed?"

"It is not for me to complain of the cruelty," said Mr. Glascock.

"We should have fared infinitely worse if we hadn't met you," said Caroline Spalding.

"But our republican simplicity won't allow us to assert that even your society is better than going to bed, after a journey of thirty hours," said Olivia.

In the meantime Trevelyan was roaming about the station moodily by himself, and the place is one not apt to restore cheerfulness to a moody man by any resources of its own. When the time for departure came Mr. Glascock sought him and found him; but Trevelyan had chosen a corner for himself in a carriage, and declared that he would rather avoid the ladies for the present. "Don't think me uncivil to leave you," he said, "but the truth is, I don't like American ladies."

"I do rather," said Mr. Glascock.

"You can say that I've got a headache," said Trevelyan. So Mr. Glascock returned to his friends, and did say that Mr. Trevelyan had a headache. It was the first time that a name had been mentioned between them.

"Mr. Trevelyan! What a pretty name. It sounds like a novel," said Olivia.

"A very clever man," said Mr. Glascock, "and much liked by his own circle. But he has had trouble, and is unhappy."

"He looks unhappy," said Caroline.

"The most miserable looking man I ever saw in my life," said Olivia. Then it was agreed between them as they went up to Trompetta's hotel, that they would go on together by the ten o'clock train to Florence.

XXXVIII. VERDICT OF THE JURY--"MAD, MY LORD."

Trevelyan was left alone at Turin when Mr. Glascock went on to Florence with his fair American friends. It was imperatively necessary that he should remain at Turin, though he had no business there of any kind whatever, and did not know a single person in the city. And of all towns in Italy Turin has perhaps less of attraction to offer to the solitary visitor than any other. It is new and parallelogrammatic as an American town, is very cold in cold weather, very hot in hot weather, and now that it has been robbed of its life as a capital, is as dull and uninteresting as though it were German or English. There is the Armoury, and the river Po, and a good hotel. But what are these things to a man who is forced to live alone in a place for four days, or perhaps a week? Trevelyan was bound to remain at Turin till he should hear from Bozzle. No one but Bozzle knew his address; and he could do nothing till Bozzle should have communicated to him tidings of what was being done at St. Diddulph's.

There is perhaps no great social question so imperfectly understood among us at the present day as that which refers to the line which divides sanity from insanity. That this man is sane and that other unfortunately mad we do know well enough; and we know also that one man may be subject to various hallucinations,--may fancy himself to be a teapot, or what not,--and yet be in such a condition of mind as to call for no intervention either on behalf of his friends, or of the law; while another may be in possession of intellectual faculties capable of lucid exertion for the highest purposes, and yet be so mad that bodily restraint upon him is indispensable. We know that the sane man is responsible for what he does, and that the insane man is irresponsible; but we do not know,--we only guess wildly, at the state of mind of those, who now and again act like madmen, though no court or council of experts has declared them to be mad. The bias of the public mind is to press heavily on such men till the law attempts to touch them, as though they were thoroughly responsible; and then, when the law interferes, to screen them as though they were altogether irresponsible. The same juryman who would find a man mad who has murdered a young woman, would in private life express a desire that the same young man should be hung, crucified, or skinned alive, if he had moodily and without reason broken his faith to the young woman in lieu of killing her. Now Trevelyan was, in truth, mad on the subject of his wife's alleged infidelity. He had abandoned everything that he valued in the world, and had made himself wretched in every affair of life, because he could not submit to acknowledge to himself the possibility of error on his own part. For that, in truth, was the condition of his mind. He had never hitherto believed that she had been false to her vow, and had sinned against him irredeemably; but he had thought that in her regard for another man she had slighted him; and, so thinking, he had subjected her to a severity of rebuke which no high-spirited woman could have borne. His wife had not tried to bear it,--in her indignation had not striven to cure the evil. Then had come his resolution that she should submit, or part from him; and, having so resolved, nothing could shake him. Though every friend he possessed was now against him,--including even Lady Milborough,--he was certain that he was right. Had not his wife sworn to obey him, and was not her whole conduct one tissue of disobedience? Would not the man who submitted to this find himself driven to submit to things worse? Let her own her fault, let her submit, and then she should come back to him.

He had not considered, when his resolutions to this effect were first forming themselves, that a separation between a man and his wife once effected cannot be annulled, and as it were cured, so as to leave no cicatrice behind. Gradually, as he spent day after day in thinking on this one subject, he came to feel that even were his wife to submit, to own her fault humbly, and to come back to him, this very coming back would in itself be a new wound. Could he go out again with his wife on his arm to the houses of those who knew that he had repudiated her because of her friendship with another man? Could he open again that house in Curzon Street, and let things go on quietly as they had gone before? He told himself that it was impossible;--that he and she were ineffably disgraced;--that, if reunited, they must live buried out of sight in some remote distance. And he told himself, also, that he could never be with her again night or day without thinking of the separation. His happiness had been shipwrecked.

Then he had put himself into the hands of Mr. Bozzle, and Mr. Bozzle had taught him that women very often do go astray. Mr. Bozzle's idea of female virtue was not high, and he had opportunities of implanting his idea on his client's mind. Trevelyan hated the man. He was filled with disgust by Bozzle's words, and was made miserable by Bozzle's presence. Yet he came gradually to believe in Bozzle. Bozzle alone believed in him. There were none but Bozzle who did not bid him to submit himself to his disobedient wife. And then, as he came to believe in Bozzle, he grew to be more and more assured that no one but Bozzle could tell him facts. His chivalry, and love, and sense of woman's honour, with something of manly pride on his own part,--so he told himself,--had taught him to believe it to be impossible that his wife should have sinned. Bozzle, who knew the world, thought otherwise. Bozzle, who had no interest in the matter, one way or the other, would find out facts. What if his chivalry, and love, and manly pride had deceived him? There were women who sinned. Then he prayed that his wife might not be such a woman; and got up from his prayers almost convinced that she was a sinner.

His mind was at work upon it always. Could it be that she was so base as this--so vile a thing, so abject, such dirt, pollution, filth? But there were such cases. Nay, were they not almost numberless? He found himself reading in the papers records of such things from day to day, and thought that in doing so he was simply acquiring experience necessary for himself. If it were so, he had indeed done well to separate himself from a thing so infamous. And if it were not so, how could it be that that man had gone to her in Devonshire? He had received from his wife's hands a short note addressed to the man, in which the man was desired by her not to go to her, or to write to her again, because of her husband's commands. He had shown this to Bozzle, and Bozzle had smiled. "It's just the sort of thing they does," Bozzle had said. "Then they writes another by post." He had consulted Bozzle as to the sending on of that letter, and Bozzle had been strongly of opinion that it should be forwarded, a copy having been duly taken and attested by himself. It might be very pretty evidence by-and-by. If the letter were not forwarded, Bozzle thought that the omission to do so might be given in evidence against his employer. Bozzle was very careful, and full of "evidence." The letter therefore was sent on to Colonel Osborne. "If there's billy-dous going between 'em we shall nobble 'em," said Bozzle. Trevelyan tore his hair in despair, but believed that there would be billy-dous.

He came to believe everything; and, though he prayed fervently that his wife might not be led astray, that she might be saved at any rate from utter vice, yet he almost came to hope that it might be otherwise;--not, indeed, with the hope of the sane man, who desires that which he tells himself to be for his advantage; but with the hope of the insane man, who loves to feed his grievance, even though the grief should be his death. They who do not understand that a man may be brought to hope that which of all things is the most grievous to him, have not observed with sufficient closeness the perversity of the human mind. Trevelyan would have given all that he had to save his wife; would, even now, have cut his tongue out before he would have expressed to anyone,--save to Bozzle,--a suspicion that she could in truth have been guilty; was continually telling himself that further life would be impossible to him, if he, and she, and that child of theirs, should be thus disgraced;--and yet he expected it, believed it, and, after a fashion, he almost hoped it.

He was to wait at Turin till tidings should come from Bozzle, and after that he would go on to Venice; but he would not move from Turin till he should have received his first communication from England. When he had been three days at Turin they came to him, and, among other letters in Bozzle's packet, there was a letter addressed in his wife's handwriting. The letter was simply directed to Bozzle's house. In what possible way could his wife have found out ought of his dealings with Bozzle,--where Bozzle lived, or could have learned that letters intended for him should be sent to the man's own residence? Before, however, we inspect the contents of Mr. Bozzle's dispatch, we will go back and see how Mrs. Trevelyan had discovered the manner of forwarding a letter to her husband.

The matter of the address was, indeed, very simple. All letters for Trevelyan were to be redirected from the house in Curzon Street, and from the chambers in Lincoln's Inn, to the Acrobats' Club; to the porter of the Acrobats' Club had been confided the secret, not of Bozzle's name, but of Bozzle's private address, No. 55, Stony Walk, Union Street, Borough. Thus all letters reaching the Acrobats' were duly sent to Mr. Bozzle's house. It may be remembered that Hugh Stanbury, on the occasion of his last visit to the parsonage of St. Diddulph's, was informed that Mrs. Trevelyan had a letter from her father for her husband, and that she knew not whither to send it. It may well be that, had the matter assumed no other interest in Stanbury's eyes than that given to it by Mrs. Trevelyan's very moderate anxiety to have the letter forwarded, he would have thought nothing about it; but having resolved, as he sat upon the knife-board of the omnibus,--the reader will, at any rate, remember those resolutions made on the top of the omnibus while Hugh was smoking his pipe,--having resolved that a deed should be done at St. Diddulph's, he resolved also that it should be done at once. He would not allow the heat of his purpose to be cooled by delay. He would go to St. Diddulph's at once, with his heart in his hand. But it might, he thought, be as well that he should have an excuse for his visit. So he called upon the porter at the Acrobats', and was successful in learning Mr. Trevelyan's address. "Stony Walk, Union Street, Borough," he said to himself, wondering; then it occurred to him that Bozzle, and Bozzle only among Trevelyan's friends, could live at Stony Walk in the Borough. Thus armed, he set out for St. Diddulph's;--and, as one of the effects of his visit to the East, Sir Marmaduke's note was forwarded to Louis Trevelyan at Turin.

XXXIX. MISS NORA ROWLEY IS MALTREATED

Hugh Stanbury, when he reached the parsonage, found no difficulty in making his way into the joint presence of Mrs. Outhouse, Mrs. Trevelyan, and Nora. He was recognised by the St. Diddulph's party as one who had come over to their side, as a friend of Trevelyan who had found himself constrained to condemn his friend in spite of his friendship, and was consequently very welcome. And there was no difficulty about giving the address. The ladies wondered how it came to pass that Mr. Trevelyan's letters should be sent to such a locality, and Hugh expressed his surprise also. He thought it discreet to withhold his suspicions about Mr. Bozzle, and simply expressed his conviction that letters sent in accordance with the directions given by the club-porter would reach their destination. Then the boy was brought down, and they were all very confidential and very unhappy together. Mrs. Trevelyan could see no end to the cruelty of her position, and declared that her father's anger against her husband was so great that she anticipated his coming with almost more of fear than of hope. Mrs. Outhouse expressed an opinion that Mr. Trevelyan must surely be mad; and Nora suggested that the possibility of such perversity on the part of a man made it almost unwise in any woman to trust herself to the power of a husband. "But there are not many like him, thank God," said Mrs. Outhouse, bridling in her wrath. Thus they were very friendly together, and Hugh was allowed to feel that he stood upon comfortable terms in the parsonage;--but he did not as yet see how he was to carry out his project for the present day.

At last Mrs. Trevelyan went away with the child. Hugh felt that he ought to go, but stayed courageously. He thought he could perceive that Nora suspected the cause of his assiduity; but it was quite evident that Mrs. Outhouse did not do so. Mrs. Outhouse, having reconciled herself to the young man, was by no means averse to his presence. She went on talking about the wickedness of Trevelyan, and her brother's anger, and the fate of the little boy, till at last the little boy's mother came back into the room. Then Mrs. Outhouse went. They must excuse her for a few minutes, she said. If only she would have gone a few minutes sooner, how well her absence might have been excused. Nora understood it all now; and though she became almost breathless, she was not surprised, when Hugh got up from his chair and asked her sister to go away. "Mrs. Trevelyan," he said, "I want to speak a few words to your sister. I hope you will give me the opportunity."

"Nora!" exclaimed Mrs. Trevelyan.

"She knows nothing about it," said Hugh.

"Am I to go?" said Mrs. Trevelyan to her sister. But Nora said never a word. She sat perfectly fixed, not turning her eyes from the object on which she was gazing.

"Pray,--pray do," said Hugh.

"I cannot think that it will be for any good," said Mrs. Trevelyan; "but I know that she may be trusted. And I suppose it ought to be so, if you wish it."

"I do wish it, of all things," said Hugh, still standing up, and almost turning the elder sister out of the room by the force of his look and voice. Then, with another pause of a moment, Mrs. Trevelyan rose from her chair and left the room, closing the door after her.

Hugh, when he found that the coast was clear for him, immediately began his task with a conviction that not a moment was to be lost. He had told himself a dozen times that the matter was hopeless, that Nora had shown him by every means in her power that she was indifferent to him, that she with all her friends would know that such a marriage was out of the question; and he had in truth come to believe that the mission which he had in hand was one in which success was not possible. But he thought that it was his duty to go on with it. "If a man love a woman, even though it be the king and the beggar-woman reversed,--though it be a beggar and a queen, he should tell her of it. If it be so, she has a right to know it and to take her choice. And he has a right to tell her, and to say what he can for himself." Such was Hugh's doctrine in the matter; and, acting upon it, he found himself alone with his mistress.

"Nora," he said, speaking perhaps with more energy than the words required, "I have come here to tell you that I love you, and to ask you to be my wife."

Nora, for the last ten minutes, had been thinking that this would come,--that it would come at once; and yet she was not at all prepared with an answer. It was now weeks since she had confessed to herself frankly that nothing else but this,--this one thing which was now happening, this one thing which had now happened,--that nothing else could make her happy, or could touch her happiness. She had refused a man whom she otherwise would have taken, because her heart had been given to Hugh Stanbury. She had been bold enough to tell that other suitor that it was so, though she had not mentioned the rival's name. She had longed for some expression of love from this man when they had been at Nuncombe together, and had been fiercely angry with him because no such expression had come from him. Day after day, since she had been with her aunt, she had told herself that she was a broken-hearted woman, because she had given away all that she had to give and had received nothing in return. Had he said a word that might have given her hope, how happy could she have been in hoping. Now he had come to her with a plain-spoken offer, telling her that he loved her, and asking her to be his wife,--and she was altogether unable to answer. How could she consent to be his wife, knowing as she did that there was no certainty of an income on which they could live? How could she tell her father and mother that she had engaged herself to marry a man who might or might not make L400 a year, and who already had a mother and sister depending on him?

In truth, had he come more gently to her, his chance of a happy answer,--of an answer which might be found to have in it something of happiness,--would have been greater. He might have said a word which she could not but have answered softly;--and then from that constrained softness other gentleness would have followed, and so he would have won her in spite of her discretion. She would have surrendered gradually, accepting on the score of her great love all the penalties of a long and precarious engagement. But when she was asked to come and be his wife, now and at once, she felt that in spite of her love it was impossible that she could accede to a request so sudden, so violent, so monstrous. He stood over her as though expecting an instant answer; and then, when she had sat dumb before him for a minute, he repeated his demand. "Tell me, Nora, can you love me? If you knew how thoroughly I have loved you, you would at least feel something for me."

To tell him that she did not love him was impossible to her. But how was she to refuse him without telling him either a lie, or the truth? Some answer she must give him; and as to that matter of marrying him, the answer must be a negative. Her education had been of that nature which teaches girls to believe that it is a crime to marry a man without an assured income. Assured morality in a husband is a great thing. Assured good temper is very excellent. Assured talent, religion, amiability, truth, honesty, are all desirable. But an assured income is indispensable. Whereas, in truth, the income may come hereafter; but the other things, unless they be there already, will hardly be forthcoming. "Mr. Stanbury," she said, "your suddenness has quite astounded me."

"Ah, yes; but how should I not be sudden? I have come here on purpose to say this to you. If I do not say it now--"

"You heard what Emily said."

"No;--what did she say?"

"She said that it would not be for good that you should speak to me thus."

"Why not for good? But she is unhappy, and looks gloomily at things."

"Yes, indeed."

"But all the world need not be sad for ever because she has been unfortunate."

"Not all the world, Mr. Stanbury;--but you must not be surprised if it affects me."

"But would that prevent your loving me,--if you did love me? But, Nora, I do not expect you to love me,--not yet. I do not say that I expect it,--ever. But if you would--. Nora, I can do no more than tell you the simple truth. Just listen to me for a minute. You know how I came to be intimate with you all in Curzon Street. The first day I saw you I loved you; and there has come no change yet. It is months now since I first knew that I loved you. Well; I told myself more than once,--when I was down at Nuncombe for instance,--that I had no right to speak to you. What right can a poor devil like me have, who lives from hand to mouth, to ask such a girl as you to be his wife? And so I said nothing,--though it was on my lips every moment that I was there." Nora remembered at the moment how she had looked to his lips, and had not seen the words there. "But I think there is something unmanly in this. If you cannot give me a grain of hope;--if you tell me that there never can be hope, it is my misfortune. It will be very grievous, but I will bear it. But that will be better than puling and moping about without daring to tell my tale. I am not ashamed of it. I have fallen in love with you, Nora, and I think it best to come for an answer."

He held out his arms as though he thought that she might perhaps come to him. Indeed he had no idea of any such coming on her part; but she, as she looked at him, almost thought that it was her duty to go. Had she a right to withhold herself from him, she who loved him so dearly? Had he stepped forward and taken her in his arms it might be that all power of refusal would soon have been beyond her power.

"Mr. Stanbury," she said, "you have confessed yourself that it is impossible."

"But do you love me;--do you think that it is possible that you should ever love me?"

"You know, Mr. Stanbury, that you should not say anything further. You know that it cannot be."

"But do you love me?"

"You are ungenerous not to take an answer without driving me to be uncourteous."

"I do not care for courtesy. Tell me the truth. Can you ever love me? With one word of hope I will wait, and work, and feel myself to be a hero. I will not go till you tell me that you cannot love me."

"Then I must tell you so."

"What is it you will tell me, Nora? Speak it. Say it. If I knew that a girl disliked me, nothing should make me press myself upon her. Am I odious to you, Nora?"

"No; not odious,--but very, very unfair."

"I will have the truth if I be ever so unfair," he said. And by this time probably some inkling of the truth had reached his intelligence. There was already a tear in Nora's eye, but he did not pity her. She owed it to him to tell him the truth, and he would have it from her if it was to be reached. "Nora," he said, "listen to me again. All my heart and soul are in this. It is everything to me. If you can love me you are bound to say so. By Jove, I will believe you do unless you swear to me that it is not so!" He was now holding her by the hand and looking closely into her face.

"Mr. Stanbury," she said, "let me go; pray, pray let me go."

"Not till you say that you love me. Oh, Nora, I believe that you love me. You do; yes; you do love me. Dearest, dearest Nora, would you not say a word to make me the happiest man in the world?" And now he had his arm round her waist.

"Let me go," she said, struggling through her tears and covering her face with her hands. "You are very, very wicked. I will never speak to you again. Nay, but you shall let me go!" And then she was out of his arms and had escaped from the room before he had managed to touch her face with his lips.

As he was thinking how he also might escape now,--might escape and comfort himself with his triumph,--Mrs. Outhouse returned to the chamber. She was very demure, and her manner towards him was considerably changed since she had left the chamber. "Mr. Stanbury," she said, "this kind of thing mustn't go any further indeed;--at least not in my house."

"What kind of thing, Mrs. Outhouse?"

"Well;--what my elder niece has told me. I have not seen Miss Rowley since she left you. I am quite sure she has behaved with discretion."

"Indeed she has, Mrs. Outhouse."

"The fact is my nieces are in grief and trouble, and this is no time or place for love-making. I am sorry to be uncivil, but I must ask you not to come here any more."

"I will stay away from this house, certainly, if you bid me."

"I am very sorry; but I must bid you. Sir Marmaduke will be home in the spring, and if you have anything to say to him of course you can see him."

Then Hugh Stanbury took his leave of Mrs. Outhouse; but as he went home, again on the knifeboard of an omnibus, he smoked the pipe of triumph rather than the pipe of contemplation.

Chapter XL

"C. G."

The Miss Spaldings were met at the station at Florence by their uncle, the American Minister, by their cousin, the American Secretary of Legation, and by three or four other dear friends and relations, who were there to welcome the newcomers to sunny Italy. Mr. Glascock, therefore, who ten minutes since had been, and had felt himself to be, quite indispensable to their comfort, suddenly became as though he were nothing and nobody. Who is there that has not felt these sudden disruptions to the intimacies and friendships of a long journey? He bowed to them, and they to him, and then they were whirled away in their grandeur. He put himself into a small, open hackney-carriage, and had himself driven to the York Hotel, feeling himself to be deserted and desolate. The two Miss Spaldings were the daughters of a very respectable lawyer at Boston, whereas Mr. Glascock was heir to a peerage, to an enormous fortune, and to one of the finest places in England. But he thought nothing of this at the time. As he went he was meditating which young woman was the most attractive, Nora Rowley or Caroline Spalding. He had no doubt but that Nora was the prettier, the pleasanter in manner, the better dressed, the more engaging in all that concerned the outer woman; but he thought that he had never met any lady who talked better than Caroline Spalding. And what was Nora Rowley's beauty to him? Had she not told him that she was the property of some one else; or, for the matter of that, what was Miss Spalding to him? They had parted, and he was going on to Naples in two days. He had said some half-defined word as to calling at the American Embassy, but it had not been taken up by either of the ladies. He had not pressed it, and so they had parted without an understanding as to a future meeting.

The double journey, from Turin to Bologna and from Bologna to Florence, is very long, and forms ample time for a considerable intimacy. There had, too, been a long day's journeying together before that; and with no women is a speedy intimacy so possible, or indeed so profitable, as with Americans. They fear nothing,--neither you nor themselves; and talk with as much freedom as though they were men. It may, perhaps, be assumed to be true as a rule that women's society is always more agreeable to men than that of other men,--except for the lack of ease. It undoubtedly is so when the women be young and pretty. There is a feeling, however, among pretty women in Europe that such freedom is dangerous, and it is withheld. There is such danger, and more or less of such withholding is expedient: but the American woman does not recognise the danger; and, if she withhold the grace of her countenance and the pearls of her speech, it is because she is not desirous of the society which is proffered to her. These two American sisters had not withholden their pearls from Mr. Glascock. He was much their senior in age; he was gentle in his manners, and they probably recognised him to be a safe companion. They had no idea who he was, and had not heard his name when they parted from him. But it was not probable that they should have been with him so long, and that they should leave him without further thought of him, without curiosity or a desire to know more of him. They had seen "C. G." in large letters on his dressing-bag, and that was all they had learned as to his identity. He had known their names well, and had once called Olivia by hers, in the hurry of speaking to her sister. He had apologised, and there had been a little laugh, and a discussion about the use of Christian names,--such as is very conducive to intimacy between gentlemen and ladies. When you can talk to a young lady about her own Christian name, you are almost entitled for the nonce to use it.

Mr. Glascock went to his hotel, and was very moody and desolate. His name was very soon known there, and he received the honours due to his rank and station. "I should like to travel in America," he said to himself, "if I could be sure that no one would find out who I was." He had received letters at Turin, stating that his father was better, and, therefore, he intended to remain two days at Florence. The weather was still very hot, and Florence in the middle of September is much preferable to Naples.

That night, when the two Miss Spaldings were alone together, they discussed their fellow-traveller thoroughly. Something, of course, had been said about him to their uncle the minister, to their aunt the minister's wife, and to their cousin the secretary of legation. But travellers will always observe that the dear new friends they have made on their journey are not interesting to the dear old friends whom they meet afterwards. There may be some touch of jealousy in this; and then, though you, the traveller, are fully aware that there has been something special in the case which has made this new friendship more peculiar than others that have sprung up in similar circumstances, fathers and brothers and wives and sisters do not see it in that light. They suspect, perhaps, that the new friend was a bagman, or an opera dancer, and think that the affair need not be made of importance. The American Minister had cast his eye on Mr. Glascock during that momentary parting, and had not thought much of Mr. Glascock. "He was certainly a gentleman," Caroline had said. "There are a great many English gentlemen," the minister had replied.

"I thought you would have asked him to call," Olivia said to her sister. "He did offer."

"I know he did. I heard it."

"Why didn't you tell him he might come?"

"Because we are not in Boston, Livy. It might be the most horrible thing in the world to do here in Florence; and it may make a difference, because Uncle Jonas is minister."

"Why should that make a difference? Do you mean that one isn't to see one's own friends? That must be nonsense."

"But he isn't a friend, Livy."

"It seems to me as if I'd known him for ever. That soft, monotonous voice, which never became excited and never disagreeable, is as familiar to me as though I had lived with it all my life."

"I thought him very pleasant."

"Indeed you did, Carry. And he thought you pleasant too. Doesn't it seem odd? You were mending his glove for him this very afternoon, just as if he were your brother."

"Why shouldn't I mend his glove?"

"Why not, indeed? He was entitled to have everything mended after getting us such a good dinner at Bologna. By-the-bye, you never paid him."

"Yes, I did,--when you were not by."

"I wonder who he is! C. G.! That fine man in the brown coat was his servant, you know. I thought at first that C. G. must have been cracked, and that the tall man was his keeper."

"I never knew any one less like a madman."

"No;--but the man was so queer. He did nothing, you know. We hardly saw him, if you remember, at Turin. All he did was to tie the shawls at Bologna. What can any man want with another man about with him like that, unless he is cracked either in body or mind?"

"You'd better ask C. G. yourself."

"I shall never see C. G. again, I suppose. I should like to see him again. I guess you would too, Carry. Eh?"

"Of course, I should;--why not?"

"I never knew a man so imperturbable, and who had yet so much to say for himself. I wonder what he is! Perhaps he's on business, and that man was a kind of a clerk."

"He had livery buttons on," said Carry.

"And does that make a difference?"

"I don't think they put clerks into livery, even in England."

"Nor yet mad doctors," said Olivia. "Well, I like him very much; and the only thing against him is that he should have a man, six feet high, going about with him doing nothing."

"You'll make me angry, Livy, if you talk in that way. It's uncharitable."

"In what way?"

"About a mad doctor."

"It's my belief," said Olivia, "that he's an English swell, a lord, or a duke;--and it's my belief, too, that he's in love with you."

"It's my belief, Livy, that you're a regular ass;"--and so the conversation was ended on that occasion.

On the next day, about noon, the American Minister, as a part of the duty which he owed to his country, read in a publication of that day, issued for the purpose, the names of the new arrivals at Florence. First and foremost was that of the Honourable Charles Glascock, with his suite, at the York Hotel, en route to join his father, Lord Peterborough, at Naples. Having read the news first to himself, the minister read it out loud in the presence of his nieces.

"That's our friend C. G.," said Livy.

"I should think not," said the minister, who had his own ideas about an English lord.

"I'm sure it is, because of the tall man with the buttons," said Olivia.

"It's very unlikely," said the secretary of legation. "Lord Peterborough is a man of immense wealth, very old, indeed. They say he is dying at Naples. This man is his eldest son."

"Is that any reason why he shouldn't have been civil to us?" asked Olivia.

"I don't think he is the sort of man likely to sit up in the banquette; and he would have posted over the Alps. Moreover, he had his suite with him."

"His suite was Buttons," said Olivia. "Only fancy, Carry, we've been waited on for two days by a lord as is to be, and didn't know it! And you have mended the tips of his lordship's glove!" But Carry said nothing at all.

Late on that same evening, they met Mr. Glascock close to the Duomo, under the shade of the Campanile. He had come out as they had done, to see by moonlight that loveliest of all works made by man's hands. They were with the minister, but Mr. Glascock came up and shook hands with them.

"I would introduce you to my uncle, Mr. Spalding," said Olivia,--"only,--as it happens,--we have never yet heard your name."

"My name is Mr. Glascock," said he, smiling. Then the introduction was made; and the American Minister took off his hat, and was very affable.

"Only think, Carry," said Olivia, when they were alone that evening, "if you were to become the wife of an English lord!"

XLI. SHEWING WHAT TOOK PLACE AT ST. DIDDULPH'S

Nora Rowley, when she escaped from the violence of her lover, at once rushed up to her own room, and managed to fasten herself in before she had been seen by any one. Her elder sister had at once gone to her aunt when, at Hugh's request, she had left the room, thinking it right that Mrs. Outhouse should know what was being done in her own house. Mrs. Outhouse had considered the matter patiently for awhile, giving the lovers the benefit of her hesitation, and had then spoken her mind to Stanbury, as we have already heard. He had, upon the whole, been so well pleased with what had occurred, that he was not in the least angry with the parson's wife when he left the parsonage. As soon as he was gone Mrs. Outhouse was at once joined by her elder niece, but Nora remained for a while alone in her room.

Had she committed herself; and if so, did she regret it? He had behaved very badly to her, certainly, taking her by the hand and putting his arm round her waist. And then had he not even attempted to kiss her? He had done all this, although she had been resolute in refusing to speak to him one word of kindness,--though she had told him with all the energy and certainty of which she was mistress, that she would never be his wife. If a girl were to be subjected to such treatment as this when she herself had been so firm, so discreet, so decided, then indeed it would be unfit that a girl should trust herself with a man. She had never thought that he had been such a one as that, to ill-use her, to lay a hand on her in violence, to refuse to take an answer. She threw herself on the bed and sobbed, and then hid her face,--and was conscious that in spite of this acting before herself she was the happiest girl alive. He had behaved very badly;--of course, he had behaved most wickedly, and she would tell him so some day. But was he not the dearest fellow living? Did ever man speak with more absolute conviction of love in every tone of his voice? Was it not the finest, noblest heart that ever throbbed beneath a waistcoat? Had not his very wickedness come from the overpowering truth of his affection for her? She would never quite forgive him because it had been so very wrong; but she would be true to him for ever and ever. Of course they could not marry. What!--would she go to him and be a clog round his neck, and a weight upon him for ever, bringing him down to the gutter by the burden of her own useless and unworthy self? No. She would never so injure him. She would not even hamper him by an engagement. But yet she would be true to him. She had an idea that in spite of all her protestations,--which, as she looked back upon them, appeared to her to have been louder than they had been,--that through the teeth of her denials, something of the truth had escaped from her. Well,--let it be so. It was the truth, and why should he not know it? Then she pictured to herself a long romance, in which the heroine lived happily on the simple knowledge that she had been beloved. And the reader may be sure that in this romance Mr. Glascock with his splendid prospects filled one of the characters.

She had been so wretched at Nuncombe Putney when she had felt herself constrained to admit to herself that this man for whom she had sacrificed herself did not care for her, that she could not now but enjoy her triumph. After she had sobbed upon the bed, she got up and walked about the room smiling; and she would now press her hands to her forehead, and then shake her tresses, and then clasp her own left hand with her right, as though he were still holding it. Wicked man! Why had he been so wicked and so violent? And why, why, why had she not once felt his lips upon her brow?

And she was pleased with herself. Her sister had rebuked her because she had refused to make her fortune by marrying Mr. Glascock; and, to own the truth, she had rebuked herself on the same score when she found that Hugh Stanbury had not had a word of love to say to her. It was not that she regretted the grandeur which she had lost, but that she should, even within her own thoughts, with the consciousness of her own bosom, have declared herself unable to receive another man's devotion because of her love for this man who neglected her. Now she was proud of herself. Whether it might be accounted as good or ill-fortune that she had ever seen Hugh Stanbury, it must at any rate be right that she should be true to him now that she had seen him and had loved him. To know that she loved and that she was not loved again had nearly killed her. But such was not her lot. She too had been successful with her quarry, and had struck her game, and brought down her dear. He had been very violent with her, but his violence had at least made the matter clear. He did love her. She would be satisfied with that, and would endeavour so to live that that alone should make life happy for her. How should she get his photograph,--and a lock of his hair?--and when again might she have the pleasure of placing her own hand within his great, rough, violent grasp? Then she kissed the hand which he had held, and opened the door of her room, at which her sister was now knocking.

"Nora, dear, will you not come down?"

"Not yet, Emily. Very soon I will."

"And what has happened, dearest?"

"There is nothing to tell, Emily."

"There must be something to tell. What did he say to you?"

"Of course you know what he said."

"And what answer did you make?"

"I told him that it could not be."

"And did he take that,--as final, Nora?"

"Of course not. What man ever takes a No as final?"

"When you said No to Mr. Glascock he took it."

"That was different, Emily."

"But how different? I don't see the difference, except that if you could have brought yourself to like Mr. Glascock, it would have been the greatest thing in the world for you, and for all of them."

"Would you have me take a man, Emily, that I didn't care one straw for, merely because he was a lord? You can't mean that."

"I'm not talking about Mr. Glascock now, Nora."

"Yes, you are. And what's the use? He is gone, and there's an end of it."

"And is Mr. Stanbury gone?"

"Of course."

"In the same way?" asked Mrs. Trevelyan.

"How can I tell about his ways? No; it is not in the same way. There! He went in a very different way."

"How was it different, Nora?"

"Oh, so different. I can't tell you how. Mr. Glascock will never come back again."

"And Mr. Stanbury will?" said the elder sister. Nora made no reply, but after a while nodded her head. "And you want him to come back?" She paused again, and again nodded her head. "Then you have accepted him?"

"I have not accepted him. I have refused him. I have told him that it was impossible."

"And yet you wish him back again!" Nora again nodded her head. "That is a state of things I cannot at all understand," said Mrs. Trevelyan, "and would not believe unless you told me so yourself."

"And you think me very wrong, of course. I will endeavour to do nothing wrong, but it is so. I have not said a word of encouragement to Mr. Stanbury; but I love him with all my heart. Ought I to tell you a lie when you question me? Or is it natural that I should never wish to see again a person whom I love better than all the world? It seems to me that a girl can hardly be right if she have any choice of her own. Here are two men, one rich and the other poor. I shall fall to the ground between them. I know that. I have fallen to the ground already. I like the one I can't marry. I don't care a straw for the one who could give me a grand house. That is falling to the ground. But I don't see that it is hard to understand, or that I have disgraced myself."

"I said nothing of disgrace, Nora."

"But you looked it."

"I did not intend to look it, dearest."

"And remember this, Emily, I have told you everything because you asked me. I do not mean to tell anybody else, at all. Mamma would not understand me. I have not told him, and I shall not."

"You mean Mr. Stanbury?"

"Yes; I mean Mr. Stanbury. As to Mr. Glascock, of course I shall tell mamma that. I have no secret there. That is his secret, and I suppose mamma should know it. But I will have nothing told about the other. Had I accepted him, or even hinted to him that I cared for him, I would tell mamma at once."

After that there came something of a lecture, or something, rather, of admonition, from Mrs. Outhouse. That lady did not attempt to upbraid, or to find any fault; but observed that as she understood that Mr. Stanbury had no means whatever, and as Nora herself had none, there had better be no further intercourse between them, till, at any rate, Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley should be in London. "So I told him that he must not come here any more, my dear," said Mrs. Outhouse.

"You are quite right, aunt. He ought not to come here."

"I am so glad that you agree with me."

"I agree with you altogether. I think I was bound to see him when he asked to see me; but the thing is altogether out of the question. I don't think he'll come any more, aunt." Then Mrs. Outhouse was quite satisfied that no harm had been done.

A month had now passed since anything had been heard at St. Diddulph's from Mr. Trevelyan, and it seemed that many months might go on in the same dull way. When Mrs. Trevelyan first found herself in her uncle's house, a sum of two hundred pounds had been sent to her; and since that she had received a letter from her husband's lawyer saying that a similar amount would be sent to her every three months, as long as she was separated from her husband. A portion of this she had given over to Mr. Outhouse; but this pecuniary assistance by no means comforted that unfortunate gentleman in his trouble. "I don't want to get into debt," he said, "by keeping a lot of people whom I haven't the means to feed. And I don't want to board and lodge my nieces and their family at so much a head. It's very hard upon me either way." And so it was. All the comfort of his home was destroyed, and he was driven to sacrifice his independence by paying his tradesmen with a portion of Mrs. Trevelyan's money. The more he thought of it all, and the more he discussed the matter with his wife, the more indignant they became with the truant husband. "I can't believe," he said, "but what Mr. Bideawhile could make him come back, if he chose to do his duty."

"But they say that Mr. Trevelyan is in Italy, my dear."

"And if I went to Italy, might I leave you to starve, and take my income with me?"

"He doesn't leave her quite to starve, my dear."

"But isn't a man bound to stay with his wife? I never heard of such a thing,--never. And I'm sure that there must be something wrong. A man can't go away and leave his wife to live with her uncle and aunt. It isn't right."

"But what can we do?"

Mr. Outhouse was forced to acknowledge that nothing could be done. He was a man to whom the quiescence of his own childless house was the one pleasure of his existence. And of that he was robbed because this wicked madman chose to neglect all his duties, and leave his wife without a house to shelter her. "Supposing that she couldn't have come here, what then?" said Mr. Outhouse. "I did tell him, as plain as words could speak, that we couldn't receive them." "But here they are," said Mrs. Outhouse, "and here they must remain till my brother comes to England." "It's the most monstrous thing that I ever heard of in all my life," said Mr. Outhouse. "He ought to be locked up;--that's what he ought."

It was hard, and it became harder, when a gentleman, whom Mr. Outhouse certainly did not wish to see, called upon him about the latter end of September. Mr. Outhouse was sitting alone, in the gloomy parlour of his parsonage,--for his own study had been given up to other things, since this great inroad had been made upon his family;--he was sitting alone on one Saturday morning, preparing for the duties of the next day, with various manuscript sermons lying on the table around him, when he was told that a gentleman had called to see him. Had Mr. Outhouse been an incumbent at the West-end of London, or had his maid been a West-end servant, in all probability the gentleman's name would have been demanded; but Mr. Outhouse was a man who was not very ready in foreseeing and preventing misfortunes, and the girl who opened the door was not trained to discreet usages in such matters. As she announced the fact that there was a gentleman, she pointed to the door, to show that the gentleman was there; and before Mr. Outhouse had been able to think whether it would be prudent for him to make some preliminary inquiry, Colonel Osborne was in the room. Now, as it happened, these two men had never hitherto met each other, though one was the brother-in-law of Sir Marmaduke Rowley, and the other had been his very old friend. "My name, Mr. Outhouse, is Colonel Osborne," said the visitor, coming forward, with his hand out. The clergyman, of course, took his hand, and asked him to be seated. "We have known each other's names very long," continued the Colonel, "though I do not think we have ever yet had an opportunity of becoming acquainted."

"No," said Mr. Outhouse; "we have never been acquainted, I believe." He might have added, that he had no desire whatever to make such acquaintance; and his manner, over which he himself had no control, did almost say as much. Indeed, this coming to his house of the suspected lover of his niece appeared to him to be a heavy addition to his troubles; for, although he was disposed to take his niece's part against her husband to any possible length,--even to the locking up of the husband as a madman, if it were possible,--nevertheless, he had almost as great a horror of the Colonel, as though the husband's allegation as to the lover had been true as gospel. Because Trevelyan had been wrong altogether, Colonel Osborne was not the less wrong. Because Trevelyan's suspicions were to Mr. Outhouse wicked and groundless, he did not the less regard the presumed lover to be an iniquitous roaring lion, going about seeking whom he might devour. Elderly unmarried men of fashion generally, and especially colonels, and majors, and members of parliament, and such like, were to him as black sheep or roaring lions. They were "fruges consumere nati;" men who stood on club doorsteps talking naughtily and doing nothing, wearing sleek clothing, for which they very often did not pay, and never going to church. It seemed to him,--in his ignorance,--that such men had none of the burdens of this world upon their shoulders, and that, therefore, they stood in great peril of the burdens of the next. It was, doubtless, his special duty to deal with men in such peril;--but those wicked ones with whom he was concerned were those whom he could reach. Now, the Colonel Osbornes of the earth were not to be got at by any clergyman, or, as far as Mr. Outhouse could see, by any means of grace. That story of the rich man and the camel seemed to him to be specially applicable to such people. How was such a one as Colonel Osborne to be shewn the way through the eye of a needle? To Mr. Outhouse, his own brother-in-law, Sir Marmaduke, was almost of the same class,--for he frequented clubs when in London, and played whist, and talked of the things of the world,--such as the Derby, and the levees, and West-end dinner parties,--as though they were all in all to him. He, to be sure, was weighted with so large a family that there might be hope for him. The eye of the needle could not be closed against him as a rich man; but he savoured of the West-end, and was worldly, and consorted with such men as this Colonel Osborne. When Colonel Osborne introduced himself to Mr. Outhouse, it was almost as though Apollyon had made his way into the parsonage of St. Diddulph's.

"Mr. Outhouse," said the Colonel, "I have thought it best to come to you the very moment that I got back to town from Scotland." Mr. Outhouse bowed, and was bethinking himself slowly what manner of speech he would adopt. "I leave town again to-morrow for Dorsetshire. I am going down to my friends, the Brambers, for partridge shooting." Mr. Outhouse knitted his thick brows, in further inward condemnation. Partridge shooting! yes;--this was September, and partridge shooting would be the probable care and occupation of such a man at such a time. A man without a duty in the world! Perhaps, added to this there was a feeling that, whereas Colonel Osborne could shoot Scotch grouse in August, and Dorsetshire partridges in September, and go about throughout the whole year like a roaring lion, he, Mr. Outhouse, was forced to remain at St. Diddulph's-in-the-East, from January to December, with the exception of one small parson's week spent at Margate, for the benefit of his wife's health. If there was such a thought, or rather, such a feeling, who will say that it was not natural? "But I could not go through London without seeing you," continued the Colonel. "This is a most frightful infatuation of Trevelyan!"

"Very frightful, indeed," said Mr. Outhouse.

"And, on my honour as a gentleman, not the slightest cause in the world."

"You are old enough to be the lady's father," said Mr. Outhouse, managing in that to get one blow at the gallant Colonel.

"Just so. God bless my soul!" Mr. Outhouse shrunk visibly at this profane allusion to the Colonel's soul. "Why, I've known her father ever so many years. As you say, I might almost be her father myself." As far as age went, such certainly might have been the case, for the Colonel was older than Sir Marmaduke. "Look here, Mr. Outhouse, here is a letter I got from Emily--"

"From Mrs. Trevelyan?"

"Yes, from Mrs. Trevelyan; and as well as I can understand, it must have been sent to me by Trevelyan himself. Did you ever hear of such a thing? And now I'm told he has gone away, nobody knows where, and has left her here."

"He has gone away,--nobody knows where."

"Of course, I don't ask to see her."

"It would be imprudent, Colonel Osborne; and could not be permitted in this house."

"I don't ask it. I have known Emily Trevelyan since she was an infant, and have always loved her. I'm her godfather, for aught I know,--though one forgets things of that sort." Mr. Outhouse again knit his eyebrows and shuddered visibly. "She and I have been fast friends,--and why not? But, of course, I can't interfere."

"If you ask me, Colonel Osborne, I should say that you can do nothing in the matter;--except to remain away from her. When Sir Marmaduke is in England, you can see him, if you please."

"See him;--of course, I shall see him. And, by George, Louis Trevelyan will have to see him, too! I shouldn't like to have to stand up before Rowley if I had treated a daughter of his in such a fashion. You know Rowley, of course?"

"Oh, yes; I know him."

"He's not the sort of man to bear this sort of thing. He'll about tear Trevelyan in pieces if he gets hold of him. God bless my soul--" the eyebrows went to work again,--"I never heard of such a thing in all my life! Does he pay anything for them, Mr. Outhouse?"

This was dreadful to the poor clergyman. "That is a subject which we surely need not discuss," said he. Then he remembered that such speech on his part was like to a subterfuge, and he found it necessary to put himself right. "I am repaid for the maintenance here of my nieces, and the little boy, and their attendants. I do not know why the question should be asked, but such is the fact."

"Then they are here by agreement between you and him?"

"No, sir; they are not. There is no such agreement. But I do not like these interrogatives from a stranger as to matters which should be private."

"You cannot wonder at my interest, Mr. Outhouse."

"You had better restrain it, sir, till Sir Marmaduke arrives. I shall then wash my hands of the affair."

"And she is pretty well;--Emily, I mean?"

"Mrs. Trevelyan's health is good."

"Pray tell her though I could not--might not ask to see her, I came to inquire after her the first moment that I was in London. Pray tell her how much I feel for her;--but she will know that. When Sir Marmaduke is here, of course, we shall meet. When she is once more under her father's wing, she need not be restrained by any absurd commands from a husband who has deserted her. At present, of course, I do not ask to see her."

"Of course, you do not, Colonel Osborne."

"And give my love to Nora;--dear little Nora! There can be no reason why she and I should not shake hands."

"I should prefer that it should not be so in this house," said the clergyman, who was now standing,--in expectation that his unwelcome guest would go.

"Very well;--so be it. But you will understand I could not be in London without coming and asking after them." Then the Colonel at last took his leave, and Mr. Outhouse was left to his solitude and his sermons.

Mrs. Outhouse was very angry when she heard of the visit. "Men of that sort," she said, "think it a fine thing, and talk about it. I believe the poor girl is as innocent as I am, but he isn't innocent. He likes it."

"'It is easier,'" said Mr. Outhouse solemnly, "'for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.'"

"I don't know that he is a rich man," said Mrs. Outhouse; "but he wouldn't have come here if he had been honest."

Mrs. Trevelyan was told of the visit, and simply said that of course it was out of the question that she should have seen Colonel Osborne. Nevertheless she seemed to think it quite natural that he should have called, and defended him with some energy when her aunt declared that he had been much to blame. "He is not bound to obey Mr. Trevelyan because I am," said Emily.

"He is bound to abstain from evil doing," said Mrs. Outhouse; "and he oughtn't to have come. There; let that be enough, my dear. Your uncle doesn't wish to have it talked about." Nevertheless it was talked about between the two sisters. Nora was of opinion that Colonel Osborne had been wrong, whereas Emily defended him. "It seems to me to have been the most natural thing in life," said she.

Had Colonel Osborne made the visit as Sir Marmaduke's friend, feeling himself to be an old man, it might have been natural. When a man has come to regard himself as being, on the score of age, about as fit to be a young lady's lover as though he were an old woman instead of an old man,--which some men will do when they are younger even than was Colonel Osborne,--he is justified in throwing behind him as utterly absurd the suspicions of other people. But Colonel Osborne cannot be defended altogether on that plea.

XLII. MISS STANBURY AND MR. GIBSON BECOME TWO

There came to be a very gloomy fortnight at Miss Stanbury's house in the Close. For two or three days after Mr. Gibson's dismissal at the hands of Miss Stanbury herself, Brooke Burgess was still in the house, and his presence saved Dorothy from the full weight of her aunt's displeasure. There was the necessity of looking after Brooke, and scolding him, and of praising him to Martha, and of dispraising him, and of seeing that he had enough to eat, and of watching whether he smoked in the house, and of quarrelling with him about everything under the sun, which together so employed Miss Stanbury that she satisfied herself with glances at Dorothy which were felt to be full of charges of ingratitude. Dorothy was thankful that it should be so, and bore the glances with abject submission. And then there was a great comfort to her in Brooke's friendship. On the second day after Mr. Gibson had gone she found herself talking to Brooke quite openly upon the subject. "The fact was, Mr. Burgess, that I didn't really care for him. I know he's very good and all that, and of course Aunt Stanbury meant it all for the best. And I would have done it if I could, but I couldn't." Brooke patted her on the back,--not in the flesh but in the spirit,--and told her that she was quite right. And he expressed an opinion too that it was not expedient to yield too much to Aunt Stanbury. "I would yield to her in anything that was possible to me," said Dorothy. "I won't," said he; "and I don't think I should do any good if I did. I like her, and I like her money. But I don't like either well enough to sell myself for a price."

A great part too of the quarrelling which went on from day to day between Brooke and Miss Stanbury was due to the difference of their opinions respecting Dorothy and her suitor. "I believe you put her up to it," said Aunt Stanbury.

"I neither put her up nor down, but I think that she was quite right."

"You've robbed her of a husband, and she'll never have another chance. After what you've done, you ought to take her yourself."

"I shall be ready to-morrow," said Brooke.

"How can you tell such a lie?" said Aunt Stanbury.

But after two or three days Brooke was gone to make a journey through the distant part of the county, and see the beauties of Devonshire. He was to be away for a fortnight, and then come back for a day or two before he returned to London. During that fortnight things did not go well with poor Dorothy at Exeter.

"I suppose you know your own business best," her aunt said to her one morning. Dorothy uttered no word of reply. She felt it to be equally impossible to suggest either that she did or that she did not know her own business best. "There may be reasons which I don't understand," exclaimed Aunt Stanbury; "but I should like to know what it is you expect."

"Why should I expect anything, Aunt Stanbury?"

"That's nonsense. Everybody expects something. You expect to have your dinner by-and-by,--don't you?"

"I suppose I shall," said Dorothy, to whom it occurred at the moment that such expectation was justified by the fact that on every day of her life hitherto some sort of a dinner had come in her way.

"Yes,--and you think it comes from heaven, I suppose."

"It comes by God's goodness and your bounty, Aunt Stanbury."

"And how will it come when I'm dead? Or how will it come if things should go in such a way that I can't stay here any longer? You don't ever think of that."

"I should go back to mamma, and Priscilla."

"Psha! As if two mouths were not enough to eat all the meal there is in that tub. If there was a word to say against the man, I wouldn't ask you to have him; if he drank, or smoked, or wasn't a gentleman, or was too poor, or anything you like. But there's nothing. It's all very well to tell me you don't love him, but why don't you love him? I don't like a girl to go and throw herself at a man's head, as those Frenches have done; but when everything has been prepared for you and made proper, it seems to me to be like turning away from good victuals." Dorothy could only offer to go home if she had offended her aunt, and then Miss Stanbury scolded her for making the offer. As this kind of thing went on at the house in the Close for a fortnight, during which there was no going out, and no society at home, Dorothy began to be rather tired of it.

At the end of the fortnight, on the morning of the day on which Brooke Burgess was expected back, Dorothy, slowly moving into the sitting room with her usual melancholy air, found Mr. Gibson talking to her aunt. "There she is herself," said Miss Stanbury, jumping up briskly, "and now you can speak to her. Of course I have no authority,--none in the least. But she knows what my wishes are." And, having so spoken, Miss Stanbury left the room.

It will be remembered that hitherto no word of affection had been whispered by Mr. Gibson into Dorothy's ears. When he came before to press his suit, she had been made aware of his coming, and had fled, leaving her answer with her aunt. Mr. Gibson had then expressed himself as somewhat injured, in that no opportunity of pouring forth his own eloquence had been permitted to him. On that occasion Miss Stanbury, being in a snubbing humour, had snubbed him. She had in truth scolded him almost as much as she had scolded Dorothy, telling him that he went about the business in hand as though butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. "You're stiff as a chair-back," she had said to him, with a few other compliments, and these amenities had for a while made him regard the establishment at Heavitree as being, at any rate, pleasanter than that in the Close. But since that cool reflection had come. The proposal was not that he should marry Miss Stanbury, senior, who certainly could be severe on occasions, but Miss Stanbury, junior, whose temper was as sweet as primroses in March. That which he would have to take from Miss Stanbury, senior, was a certain sum of money, as to which her promise was as good as any bond in the world. Things had come to such a pass with him in Exeter,--from the hints of his friend the Prebend, from a word or two which had come to him from the Dean, from certain family arrangements proposed to him by his mother and sisters,--things had come to such a pass that he was of a mind that he had better marry some one. He had, as it were, three strings to his bow. There were the two French strings, and there was Dorothy. He had not breadth of genius enough to suggest to himself that yet another woman might be found. There was a difficulty on the French score even about Miss Stanbury; but it was clear to him that, failing her, he was due to one of the two Miss Frenches. Now it was not only that the Miss Frenches were empty-handed, but he was beginning to think himself that they were not as nice as they might have been in reference to the arrangement of their head-gear. Therefore, having given much thought to the matter, and remembering that he had never yet had play for his own eloquence with Dorothy, he had come to Miss Stanbury asking that he might have another chance. It had been borne in upon him that he had perhaps hitherto regarded Dorothy as too certainly his own since she had been offered to him by her aunt,--as being a prize that required no eloquence in the winning; and he thought that if he could have an opportunity of amending that fault, it might even yet be well with his suit. So he prepared himself, and asked permission, and now found himself alone with the young lady.

"When last I was in this house, Miss Stanbury," he began, "I was not fortunate enough to be allowed an opportunity of pleading my cause to yourself." Then he paused, and Dorothy was left to consider how best she might answer him. All that her aunt had said to her had not been thrown away upon her. The calls upon that slender meal-tub at home she knew were quite sufficient. And Mr. Gibson was, she believed, a good man. And how better could she dispose of herself in life? And what was she that she should scorn the love of an honest gentleman? She would take him, she thought,--if she could. But then there came upon her, unconsciously, without work of thought, by instinct rather than by intelligence, a feeling of the closeness of a wife to her husband. Looking at it in general she could not deny that it would be very proper that she should become Mrs. Gibson. But when there came upon her a remembrance that she would be called upon for demonstration of her love,--that he would embrace her, and hold her to his heart, and kiss her,--she revolted and shuddered. She believed that she did not want to marry any man, and that such a state of things would not be good for her. "Dear young lady," continued Mr. Gibson, "you will let me now make up for the loss which I then experienced?"

"I thought it was better not to give you trouble," said Dorothy.

"Trouble, Miss Stanbury! How could it be trouble? The labour we delight in physics pain. But to go back to the subject-matter. I hope you do not doubt that my affection for you is true and honest, and genuine."

"I don't want to doubt anything, Mr. Gibson; but--"

"You needn't, dearest Miss Stanbury; indeed you needn't. If you could read my heart you would see written there true love very plainly;--very plainly. And do you not think it a duty that people should marry?" It may be surmised that he had here forgotten some connecting link which should have joined without abruptness the declaration of his own love, and his social view as to the general expediency of matrimony. But Dorothy did not discover the hiatus.

"Certainly,--when they like each other, and if their friends think it proper."

"Our friends think it proper, Miss Stanbury,--may I say Dorothy?--all of them. I can assure you that on my side you will be welcomed by a mother and sisters only too anxious to receive you with open arms. And as regards your own relations, I need hardly allude to your revered aunt. As to your own mother and sister,--and your brother, who, I believe, gives his mind chiefly to other things,--I am assured by Miss Stanbury that no opposition need be feared from them. Is that true, dearest Dorothy?"

"It is true."

"Does not all that plead in my behalf? Tell me, Dorothy."

"Of course it does."

"And you will be mine?" As far as eloquence could be of service, Mr. Gibson was sufficiently eloquent. To Dorothy his words appeared good, and true, and affecting. All their friends did wish it. There were many reasons why it should be done. If talking could have done it, his talking was good enough. Though his words were in truth cold, and affected, and learned by rote, they did not offend her; but his face offended her; and the feeling was strong within her that if she yielded, it would soon be close to her own. She couldn't do it. She didn't love him, and she wouldn't do it. Priscilla would not grudge her her share out of that meagre meal-tub. Had not Priscilla told her not to marry the man if she did not love him? She found that she was further than ever from loving him. She would not do it. "Say that you will be mine," pleaded Mr. Gibson, coming to her with both his hands outstretched.

"Mr. Gibson, I can't," she said. She was sobbing now, and was half choked by tears.

"And why not, Dorothy?"

"I don't know, but I can't. I don't feel that I want to be married at all."

"But it is honourable."

"It's no use, Mr. Gibson; I can't, and you oughtn't to ask me any more."

"Must this be your very last answer?"

"What's the good of going over it all again and again? I can't do it."

"Never, Miss Stanbury?"

"No;--never."

"That is cruel, very cruel. I fear that you doubt my love."

"It isn't cruel, Mr. Gibson. I have a right to have my own feelings, and I can't. If you please, I'll go away now." Then she went, and he was left standing alone in the room. His first feeling was one of anger. Then there came to be mixed with that a good deal of wonder,--and then a certain amount of doubt. He had during the last fortnight discussed the matter at great length with a friend, a gentleman who knew the world, and who took upon himself to say that he specially understood female nature. It was by advice from this friend that he had been instigated to plead his own cause. "Of course she means to accept you," the friend had said. "Why the mischief shouldn't she? But she has some flimsy, old-fashioned country idea that it isn't maidenly to give in at first. You tell her roundly that she must marry you." Mr. Gibson was just reaching that roundness which his friend had recommended when the lady left him and he was alone.

Mr. Gibson was no doubt very much in love with Dorothy Stanbury. So much, we may take for granted. He, at least, believed that he was in love with her. He would have thought it wicked to propose to her had he not been in love with her. But with his love was mingled a certain amount of contempt which had induced him to look upon her as an easy conquest. He had been perhaps a little ashamed of himself for being in love with Dorothy, and had almost believed the Frenches when they had spoken of her as a poor creature, a dependant, one born to be snubbed,--as a young woman almost without an identity of her own. When, therefore, she so pertinaciously refused him, he could not but be angry. And it was natural that he should be surprised. Though he was to have received a fortune with Dorothy, the money was not hers. It was to be hers,--or rather theirs,--only if she would accept him. Mr. Gibson thoroughly understood this point. He knew that Dorothy had nothing of her own. The proposal made to her was as rich as though he had sought her down at Nuncombe Putney, with his preferment, plus the L2,000, in his own pocket. And his other advantages were not hidden from his own eyes. He was a clergyman, well thought of, not bad-looking certainly, considerably under forty,--a man, indeed, who ought to have been, in the eyes of Dorothy, such an Orlando as she would have most desired. He could not therefore but wonder. And then came the doubt. Could it be possible that all those refusals were simply the early pulses of hesitating compliance produced by maidenly reserve? Mr. Gibson's friend had expressed a strong opinion that almost any young woman would accept any young man if he put his "com 'ether" upon her strong enough. For Mr. Gibson's friend was an Irishman. As to Dorothy the friend had not a doubt in the world. Mr. Gibson, as he stood alone in the room after Dorothy's departure, could not share his friend's certainty; but he thought it just possible that the pulsations of maidenly reserve were yet at work. As he was revolving these points in his mind, Miss Stanbury entered the room.

"It's all over now," she said.

"As how, Miss Stanbury?"

"As how! She's given you an answer; hasn't she?"

"Yes, Miss Stanbury, she has given me an answer. But it has occurred to me that young ladies are sometimes,--perhaps a little--"

"She means it, Mr. Gibson; you may take my word for that. She is quite in earnest. She can take the bit between her teeth as well as another, though she does look so mild and gentle. She's a Stanbury all over."

"And must this be the last of it, Miss Stanbury?"

"Upon my word, I don't know what else you can do,--unless you send the Dean and Chapter to talk her over. She's a pig-headed, foolish young woman;--but I can't help that. The truth is, you didn't make enough of her at first, Mr. Gibson. You thought the plum would tumble into your mouth."

This did seem cruel to the poor man. From the first day in which the project had been opened to him by Miss Stanbury, he had yielded a ready acquiescence,--in spite of those ties which he had at Heavitree,--and had done his very best to fall into her views. "I don't think that is at all fair, Miss Stanbury," he said, with some tone of wrath in his voice.

"It's true,--quite true. You always treated her as though she were something beneath you." Mr. Gibson stood speechless, with his mouth open. "So you did. I saw it all. And now she's had spirit enough to resent it. I don't wonder at it; I don't, indeed. It's no good your standing there any longer. The thing is done."

Such intolerable ill-usage Mr. Gibson had never suffered in his life. Had he been untrue, or very nearly untrue, to those dear girls at Heavitree for this? "I never treated her as anything beneath me," he said at last.

"Yes, you did. Do you think that I don't understand? Haven't I eyes in my head, and ears? I'm not deaf yet, nor blind. But there's an end of it. If any young woman ever meant anything, she means it. The truth is, she don't like you."

Was ever a lover despatched in so uncourteous a way! Then, too, he had been summoned thither as a lover, had been specially encouraged to come there as a lover, had been assured of success in a peculiar way, had had the plum actually offered to him! He had done all that this old woman had bidden him,--something, indeed, to the prejudice of his own heart; he had been told that the wife was ready for him; and now, because this foolish young woman didn't know her own mind,--this was Mr. Gibson's view of the matter,--he was reviled and abused, and told that he had behaved badly to the lady. "Miss Stanbury," he said, "I think that you are forgetting yourself."

"Highty, tighty!" said Miss Stanbury. "Forgetting myself! I shan't forget you in a hurry, Mr. Gibson."

"Nor I you, Miss Stanbury. Good morning, Miss Stanbury." Mr. Gibson, as he went from the hall-door into the street, shook the dust off his feet, and resolved that for the future he and Miss Stanbury should be two. There would arise great trouble in Exeter, but, nevertheless, he and Miss Stanbury must be two. He could justify himself in no other purpose after such conduct as he had received.

XLIII. LABURNUM COTTAGE

There had been various letters passing, during the last six weeks, between Priscilla Stanbury and her brother, respecting the Clock House at Nuncombe Putney. The ladies at Nuncombe had, certainly, gone into the Clock House on the clear understanding that the expenses of the establishment were to be incurred on behalf of Mrs. Trevelyan. Priscilla had assented to the movement most doubtingly. She had disliked the idea of taking the charge of a young married woman who was separated from her husband, and she had felt that a going down after such an uprising,--a fall from the Clock House back to a cottage,--would be very disagreeable. She had, however, allowed her brother's arguments to prevail, and there they were. The annoyance which she had anticipated from the position of their late guest had fallen upon them: it had been felt grievously, from the moment in which Colonel Osborne called at the house; and now that going back to the cottage must be endured. Priscilla understood that there had been a settlement between Trevelyan and Stanbury as to the cost of the establishment so far;--but that must now be at an end. In their present circumstances she would not continue to live there, and had already made inquiries as to some humble roof for their shelter. For herself she would not have cared had it been necessary for her to hide herself in a hut,--for herself, as regarded any feeling as to her own standing in the village. For herself, she was ashamed of nothing. But her mother would suffer, and she knew what Aunt Stanbury would say to Dorothy. To Dorothy at the present moment, if Dorothy should think of accepting her suitor, the change might be very deleterious; but still it should be made. She could not endure to live there on the very hard-earned proceeds of her brother's pen,--proceeds which were not only hard-earned, but precarious. She gave warning to the two servants who had been hired, and consulted with Mrs. Crocket as to a cottage, and was careful to let it be known throughout Nuncombe Putney that the Clock House was to be abandoned. The Clock House had been taken furnished for six months, of which half were not yet over; but there were other expenses of living there much greater than the rent, and go she would. Her mother sighed and assented; and Mrs. Crocket, having strongly but fruitlessly advised that the Clock House should be inhabited at any rate for the six months, promised her assistance. "It has been a bad business, Mrs. Crocket," said Priscilla; "and all we can do now is to get out of it as well as we can. Every mouthful I eat chokes me while I stay there." "It ain't good, certainly, miss, not to know as you're all straight the first thing as you wakes in the morning," said Mrs. Crocket,--who was always able to feel when she woke that everything was straight with her.

Then there came the correspondence between Priscilla and Hugh. Priscilla was at first decided, indeed, but mild in the expression of her decision. To this, and to one or two other missives couched in terms of increasing decision, Hugh answered with manly, self-asserting, overbearing arguments. The house was theirs till Christmas; between this and then he would think about it. He could very well afford to keep the house on till next Midsummer, and then they might see what had best be done. There was plenty of money, and Priscilla need not put herself into a flutter. In answer to that word flutter, Priscilla wrote as follows:--

Clock House, September 16, 186--.

DEAR HUGH,

I know very well how good you are, and how generous, but you must allow me to have feelings as well as yourself. I will not consent to have myself regarded as a grand lady out of your earnings. How should I feel when some day I heard that you had run yourself into debt? Neither mamma nor I could endure it. Dorothy is provided for now, at any rate for a time, and what we have is enough for us. You know I am not too proud to take anything you can spare to us, when we are ourselves placed in a proper position: but I could not live in this great house, while you are paying for everything,--and I will not. Mamma quite agrees with me, and we shall go out of it on Michaelmas-day. Mrs. Crocket says she thinks she can get you a tenant for the three months, out of Exeter,--if not for the whole rent, at least for part of it. I think we have already got a small place for eight shillings a week, a little out of the village, on the road to Cockchaffington. You will remember it. Old Soames used to live there. Our old furniture will be just enough. There is a mite of a garden, and Mrs. Crocket says she thinks we can get it for seven shillings, or perhaps for six and sixpence, if we stay there. We shall go in on the 29th. Mrs. Crocket will see about having somebody to take care of the house.

Your most affectionate sister,

PRISCILLA.

On the receipt of this letter, Hugh proceeded to Nuncombe. At this time he was making about ten guineas a week, and thought that he saw his way to further work. No doubt the ten guineas were precarious;--that is, the "Daily Record" might discontinue his services to-morrow, if the "Daily Record" thought fit to do so. The greater part of his earnings came from the "D. R.," and the editor had only to say that things did not suit any longer, and there would be an end of it. He was not as a lawyer or a doctor with many clients who could not all be supposed to withdraw their custom at once; but leading articles were things wanted with at least as much regularity as physic or law, and Hugh Stanbury, believing in himself, did not think it probable that an editor, who knew what he was about, would withdraw his patronage. He was proud of his weekly ten guineas, feeling sure that a weekly ten guineas would not as yet have been his had he stuck to the Bar as a profession. He had calculated, when Mrs. Trevelyan left the Clock House, that two hundred a year would enable his mother to continue to reside there, the rent of the place furnished, or half-furnished, being only eighty; and he thought that he could pay the two hundred easily. He thought so still, when he received Priscilla's last letter; but he knew something of the stubbornness of his dear sister, and he, therefore, went down to Nuncombe Putney, in order that he might use the violence of his logic on his mother.

He had heard of Mr. Gibson from both Priscilla and from Dorothy, and was certainly desirous that "dear old Dolly," as he called her, should be settled comfortably. But when dear old Dolly wrote to him declaring that it could not be so, that Mr. Gibson was a very nice gentleman, of whom she could not say that she was particularly fond,--"though I really do think that he is an excellent man, and if it was any other girl in the world, I should recommend her to take him,"--and that she thought that she would rather not get married, he wrote to her the kindest brotherly letter in the world, telling her that she was "a brick," and suggesting to her that there might come some day some one who would suit her taste better than Mr. Gibson. "I'm not very fond of parsons myself," said Hugh, "but you must not tell that to Aunt Stanbury." Then he suggested that as he was going down to Nuncombe, Dorothy should get leave of absence and come over and meet him at the Clock House. Dorothy demanded the leave of absence somewhat imperiously, and was at home at the Clock House when Hugh arrived.

"And so that little affair couldn't come off?" said Hugh at their first family meeting.

"It was a pity," said Mrs. Stanbury, plaintively. She had been very plaintive on the subject. What a thing it would have been for her, could she have seen Dorothy so well established!

"There's no help for spilt milk, mother," said Hugh. Mrs. Stanbury shook her head.

"Dorothy was quite right," said Priscilla.

"Of course she was right," said Hugh. "Who doubts her being right? Bless my soul! What's any girl to do if she don't like a man except to tell him so? I honour you, Dolly,--not that I ever should have doubted you. You're too much of a chip of the old block to say you liked a man when you didn't."

"He is a very excellent young man," said Mrs. Stanbury.

"An excellent fiddlestick, mother. Loving and liking don't go by excellence. Besides, I don't know about his being any better than anybody else, just because he's a clergyman."

"A clergyman is more likely to be steady than other men," said the mother.

"Steady, yes; and as selfish as you please."

"Your father was a clergyman, Hugh."

"I don't mean to say that they are not as good as others; but I won't have it that they are better. They are always dealing with the Bible, till they think themselves apostles. But when money comes up, or comfort, or, for the matter of that either, a pretty woman with a little money, then they are as human as the rest of us."

If the truth had been told on that occasion, Hugh Stanbury would have had to own that he had written lately two or three rather stinging articles in the "Daily Record," as "to the assumed merits and actual demerits of the clergy of the Church of England." It is astonishing how fluent a man is on a subject when he has lately delivered himself respecting it in this fashion.

Nothing on that evening was said about the Clock House, or about Priscilla's intentions. Priscilla was up early on the next morning, intending to discuss it in the garden with Hugh before breakfast; but Hugh was aware of her purpose and avoided her. It was his intention to speak first to his mother; and though his mother was, as he knew, very much in awe of her daughter, he thought that he might carry his point, at any rate for the next three months, by forcing an assent from the elder lady. So he managed to waylay Mrs. Stanbury before she descended to the parlour.

"We can't afford it, my dear;--indeed we can't," said Mrs. Stanbury.

"That's not the question, mother. The rent must be paid up to Christmas, and you can live here as cheap as you can anywhere."

"But Priscilla--"

"Oh, Priscilla! Of course we know what Priscilla says. Priscilla has been writing to me about it in the most sensible manner in the world; but what does it all come to? If you are ashamed of taking assistance from me, I don't know who is to do anything for anybody. You are comfortable here?"

"Very comfortable; only Priscilla feels--"

"Priscilla is a tyrant, mother; and a very stern one. Just make up your mind to stay here till Christmas. If I tell you that I can afford it, surely that ought to be enough." Then Dorothy entered the room, and Hugh appealed to her. Dorothy had come to Nuncombe only on the day before, and had not been consulted on the subject. She had been told that the Clock House was to be abandoned, and had been taken down to inspect the cottage in which old Soames had lived;--but her opinion had not been asked. Priscilla had quite made up her mind, and why should she ask an opinion of any one? But now Dorothy's opinion was demanded. "It's what I call the rhodomontade of independence," said Hugh.

"I suppose it is very expensive," suggested Dorothy.

"The house must be paid for," said Hugh;--"and if I say that I've got the money, is not that enough? A miserable, dirty little place, where you'll catch your death of lumbago, mother."

"Of course it's not a comfortable house," said Mrs. Stanbury,--who, of herself, was not at all indifferent to the comforts of her present residence.

"And it is very dirty," said Dorothy.

"The nastiest place I ever saw in my life. Come, mother; if I say that I can afford it, ought not that to be enough for you? If you think you can't trust me, there's an end of everything, you know." And Hugh, as he thus expressed himself, assumed an air of injured virtue.

Mrs. Stanbury had very nearly yielded, when Priscilla came in among them. It was impossible not to continue the conversation, though Hugh would much have preferred to have forced an assent from his mother before he opened his mouth on the subject to his sister. "My mother agrees with me," said he abruptly, "and so does Dolly, that it will be absurd to move away from this house at present."

"Mamma!" exclaimed Priscilla.

"I don't think I said that, Hugh," murmured Dorothy, softly.

"I'm sure I don't want anything for myself," said Mrs. Stanbury.

"It's I that want it," said Hugh. "And I think that I've a right to have my wishes respected, so far as that goes."

"My dear Hugh," said Priscilla, "the cottage is already taken, and we shall certainly go into it. I spoke to Mrs. Crocket yesterday about a cart for moving the things. I'm sure mamma agrees with me. What possible business can people have to live in such a house as this with about twenty-four shillings a week for everything? I won't do it. And as the thing is settled, it is only making trouble to disturb it."

"I suppose, Priscilla," said Hugh, "you'll do as your mother chooses?"

"Mamma chooses to go. She has told me so already."

"You have talked her into it."

"We had better go, Hugh," said Mrs. Stanbury. "I'm sure we had better go."

"Of course we shall go," said Priscilla. "Hugh is very kind and very generous, but he is only giving trouble for nothing about this. Had we not better go down to breakfast?"

And so Priscilla carried the day. They went down to breakfast, and during the meal Hugh would speak to nobody. When the gloomy meal was over he took his pipe and walked out to the cottage. It was an untidy-looking, rickety place, small and desolate, with a pretension about it of the lowest order, a pretension that was evidently ashamed of itself. There was a porch. And the one sitting-room had what the late Mr. Soames had always called his bow window. But the porch looked as though it were tumbling down, and the bow window looked as though it were tumbling out. The parlour and the bedroom over it had been papered;--but the paper was torn and soiled, and in sundry places was hanging loose. There was a miserable little room called a kitchen to the right as you entered the door, in which the grate was worn out, and behind this was a shed with a copper. In the garden there remained the stumps and stalks of Mr. Soames's cabbages, and there were weeds in plenty, and a damp hole among some elder bushes called an arbour. It was named Laburnum Cottage, from a shrub that grew at the end of the house. Hugh Stanbury shuddered as he stood smoking among the cabbage-stalks. How could a man ask such a girl as Nora Rowley to be his wife, whose mother lived in a place like this? While he was still standing in the garden, and thinking of Priscilla's obstinacy and his own ten guineas a week, and the sort of life which he lived in London,--where he dined usually at his club, and denied himself nothing in the way of pipes, beer, and beefsteaks, he heard a step behind him, and turning round, saw his elder sister.

"Hugh," she said, "you must not be angry with me."

"But I am angry with you."

"I know you are; but you are unjust. I am doing what I am sure is right."

"I never saw such a beastly hole as this in all my life."

"I don't think it beastly at all. You'll find that I'll make it nice. Whatever we want here you shall give us. You are not to think that I am too proud to take anything at your hands. It is not that."

"It's very like it."

"I have never refused anything that is reasonable, but it is quite unreasonable that we should go on living in such a place as that, as though we had three or four hundred a year of our own. If mamma got used to the comfort of it, it would be hard then upon her to move. You shall give her what you can afford, and what is reasonable; but it is madness to think of living there. I couldn't do it."

"You're to have your way at any rate, it seems."

"But you must not quarrel with me, Hugh. Give me a kiss. I don't have you often with me; and yet you are the only man in the world that I ever speak to, or even know. I sometimes half think that the bread is so hard and the water so bitter, that life will become impossible. I try to get over it; but if you were to go away from me in anger, I should be so beaten for a week or two that I could do nothing."

"Why won't you let me do anything?"

"I will;--whatever you please. But kiss me." Then he kissed her, as he stood among Mr. Soames's cabbage-stalks. "Dear Hugh; you are such a god to me!"

"You don't treat me like a divinity."

"But I think of you as one when you are absent. The gods were never obeyed when they showed themselves. Let us go and have a walk. Come;--shall we get as far as Ridleigh Mill?" Then they started together, and all unpleasantness was over between them when they returned to the Clock House.

XLIV. BROOKE BURGESS TAKES LEAVE OF EXETER

The time had arrived at which Brooke Burgess was to leave Exeter. He had made his tour through the county, and returned to spend his two last nights at Miss Stanbury's house. When he came back Dorothy was still at Nuncombe, but she arrived in the Close the day before his departure. Her mother and sister had wished her to stay at Nuncombe. "There is a bed for you now, and a place to be comfortable in," Priscilla had said, laughing, "and you may as well see the last of us." But Dorothy declared that she had named a day to her aunt, and that she would not break her engagement. "I suppose you can stay if you like," Priscilla had urged. But Dorothy was of opinion that she ought not to stay. She said not a word about Brooke Burgess; but it may be that it would have been matter of regret to her not to shake hands with him once more. Brooke declared to her that had she not come back he would have gone over to Nuncombe to see her; but Dorothy did not consider herself entitled to believe that.

On the morning of the last day Brooke went over to his uncle's office. "I've come to say good-bye, Uncle Barty," he said.

"Good-bye, my boy. Take care of yourself."

"I mean to try."

"You haven't quarrelled with the old woman,--have you?" said Uncle Barty.

"Not yet;--that is to say, not to the knife."

"And you still believe that you are to have her money?"

"I believe nothing one way or the other. You may be sure of this,--I shall never count it mine till I've got it; and I shall never make myself so sure of it as to break my heart because I don't get it. I suppose I've got as good a right to it as anybody else, and I don't see why I shouldn't take it if it come in my way."

"I don't think it ever will," said the old man, after a pause.

"I shall be none the worse," said Brooke.

"Yes, you will. You'll be a broken-hearted man. And she means to break your heart. She does it on purpose. She has no more idea of leaving you her money than I have. Why should she?"

"Simply because she takes the fancy."

"Fancy! Believe me, there is very little fancy about it. There isn't one of the name she wouldn't ruin if she could. She'd break all our hearts if she could get at them. Look at me and my position. I'm little more than a clerk in the concern. By God;--I'm not so well off as a senior clerk in many a bank. If there came a bad time, I must lose as the others would lose;--but a clerk never loses. And my share in the business is almost a nothing. It's just nothing,--compared to what it would have been, only for her."

Brooke had known that his uncle was a disappointed, or at least a discontented man; but he had never known much of the old man's circumstances, and certainly had not expected to hear him speak in the strain that he had now used. He had heard often that his Uncle Barty disliked Miss Stanbury, and had not been surprised at former sharp, biting little words spoken in reference to that lady's character. But he had not expected such a tirade of abuse as the banker had now poured out. "Of course I know nothing about the bank," said he; "but I did not suppose that she had had anything to do with it."

"Where do you think the money came from that she has got? Did you ever hear that she had anything of her own? She never had a penny,--never a penny. It came out of this house. It is the capital on which this business was founded, and on which it ought to be carried on to this day. My brother had thrown her off; by heavens, yes;--had thrown her off. He had found out what she was, and had got rid of her."

"But he left her his money."

"Yes;--she got near him when he was dying, and he did leave her his money;--his money, and my money, and your father's money."

"He could have given her nothing, Uncle Barty, that wasn't his own."

"Of course that's true;--it's true in one way. You might say the same of a man who was cozened into leaving every shilling away from his own children. I wasn't in Exeter when the will was made. We none of us were here. But she was here; and when we came to see him die, there we found her. She had had her revenge upon him, and she means to have it on all of us. I don't believe she'll ever leave you a shilling, Brooke. You'll find her out yet, and you'll talk of her to your nephews as I do to you."

Brooke made some ordinary answer to this, and bade his uncle adieu. He had allowed himself to entertain a half chivalrous idea that he could produce a reconciliation between Miss Stanbury and his uncle Barty; and since he had been at Exeter he had said a word, first to the one and then to the other, hinting at the subject; but his hints had certainly not been successful. As he walked from the bank into the High Street he could not fail to ask himself whether there were any grounds for the terrible accusations which he had just heard from his uncle's lips. Something of the same kind, though in form much less violent, had been repeated to him very often by others of the family. Though he had as a boy known Miss Stanbury well, he had been taught to regard her as an ogress. All the Burgesses had regarded Miss Stanbury as an ogress since that unfortunate will had come to light. But she was an ogress from whom something might be gained,--and the ogress had still persisted in saying that a Burgess should be her heir. It had therefore come to pass that Brooke had been brought up half to revere her and half to abhor her. "She is a dreadful woman," said his branch of the family, "who will not scruple at anything evil. But as it seems that you may probably reap the advantage of the evil that she does, it will become you to put up with her iniquity." As he had become old enough to understand the nature of her position, he had determined to judge for himself;--but his judgment hitherto simply amounted to this,--that Miss Stanbury was a very singular old woman, with a kind heart and good instincts, but so capricious withal that no sensible man would risk his happiness on expectations formed on her promises. Guided by this opinion, he had resolved to be attentive to her and, after a certain fashion, submissive; but certainly not to become her slave. She had thrown over her nephew. She was constantly complaining to him of her niece. Now and again she would say a very bitter word to him about himself. When he had left Exeter on his little excursion, no one was so much in favour with her as Mr. Gibson. On his return he found that Mr. Gibson had been altogether discarded, and was spoken of in terms of almost insolent abuse. "If I were ever so humble to her," he had said to himself, "it would do no good; and there is nothing I hate so much as humility." He had thus determined to take the goods the gods provided, should it ever come to pass that such godlike provision was laid before him out of Miss Stanbury's coffers;--but not to alter his mode of life or put himself out of his way in obedience to her behests, as a man might be expected to do who was destined to receive so rich a legacy. Upon this idea he had acted, still believing the old woman to be good, but believing at the same time that she was very capricious. Now he had heard what his Uncle Bartholomew Burgess had had to say upon the matter, and he could not refrain from asking himself whether his uncle's accusations were true.

In a narrow passage between the High Street and the Close he met Mr. Gibson. There had come to be that sort of intimacy between the two men which grows from closeness of position rather than from any social desire on either side, and it was natural that Burgess should say a word of farewell. On the previous evening Miss Stanbury had relieved her mind by turning Mr. Gibson into ridicule in her description to Brooke of the manner in which the clergyman had carried on his love affair; and she had at the same time declared that Mr. Gibson had been most violently impertinent to herself. He knew, therefore, that Miss Stanbury and Mr. Gibson had become two, and would on this occasion have passed on without a word relative to the old lady had Mr. Gibson allowed him to do so. But Mr. Gibson spoke his mind freely.

"Off to-morrow, are you?" he said. "Good-bye. I hope we may meet again; but not in the same house, Mr. Burgess."

"There or anywhere I shall be very happy," said Brooke.

"Not there, certainly. While you were absent Miss Stanbury treated me in such a way that I shall certainly never put my foot in her house again."

"Dear me! I thought that you and she were such great friends."

"I knew her very well, of course;--and respected her. She is a good churchwoman, and is charitable in the city; but she has got such a tongue in her head that there is no bearing it when she does what she calls giving you a bit of her mind."

"She has been indulgent to me, and has not given me much of it."

"Your time will come, I've no doubt," continued Mr. Gibson. "Everybody has always told me that it would be so. Even her oldest friends knew it. You ask Mrs. MacHugh, or Mrs. French, at Heavitree."

"Mrs. French!" said Brooke, laughing. "That would hardly be fair evidence."

"Why not? I don't know a better judge of character in all Exeter than Mrs. French. And she and Miss Stanbury have been intimate all their lives. Ask your uncle at the bank."

"My uncle and Miss Stanbury never were friends," said Brooke.

"Ask Hugh Stanbury what he thinks of her. But don't suppose I want to say a word against her. I wouldn't for the world do such a thing. Only, as we've met there and all that, I thought it best to let you know that she had treated me in such a way, and has been altogether so violent, that I never will go there again." So saying, Mr. Gibson passed on, and was of opinion that he had spoken with great generosity of the old woman who had treated him so badly.

In the afternoon Brooke Burgess went over to the further end of the Close, and called on Mrs. MacHugh; and from thence he walked across to Heavitree, and called on the Frenches. It may be doubted whether he would have been so well behaved to these ladies had they not been appealed to by Mr. Gibson as witnesses to the character of Miss Stanbury. He got very little from Mrs. MacHugh. That lady was kind and cordial, and expressed many wishes that she might see him again in Exeter. When he said a few words about Mr. Gibson, Mrs. MacHugh only laughed, and declared that the gentleman would soon find a plaister for that sore. "There are more fishes than one in the sea," she said.

"But I'm afraid they've quarrelled, Mrs. MacHugh."

"So they tell me. What should we have to talk about here if somebody didn't quarrel sometimes? She and I ought to get up a quarrel for the good of the public;--only they know that I never can quarrel with anybody. I never see anybody interesting enough to quarrel with." But Mrs. MacHugh said nothing about Miss Stanbury, except that she sent over a message with reference to a rubber of whist for the next night but one.

He found the two French girls sitting with their mother, and they all expressed their great gratitude to him for coming to say good-bye before he went. "It's so very nice of you, Mr. Burgess," said Camilla, "and particularly just at present."

"Yes, indeed," said Arabella, "because you know things have been so unpleasant."

"My dears, never mind about that," said Mrs. French. "Miss Stanbury has meant everything for the best, and it is all over now."

"I don't know what you mean by its being all over, mamma," said Camilla. "As far as I can understand, it has never been begun."

"My dear, the least said the soonest mended," said Mrs. French.

"That's of course, mamma," said Camilla; "but yet one can't hold one's tongue altogether. All the city is talking about it, and I dare say Mr. Burgess has heard as much as anybody else."

"I've heard nothing at all," said Brooke.

"Oh yes, you have," continued Camilla. Arabella conceived herself at this moment to be situated in so delicate a position, that it was best that her sister should talk about it, and that she herself should hold her tongue,--with the exception, perhaps, of a hint here and there which might be of assistance; for Arabella completely understood that the prize was now to be hers, if the prize could be rescued out of the Stanbury clutches. She was aware,--no one better aware,--how her sister had interfered with her early hopes, and was sure, in her own mind, that all her disappointment had come from fratricidal rivalry on the part of Camilla. It had never, however, been open to her to quarrel with Camilla. There they were, linked together, and together they must fight their battles. As two pigs may be seen at the same trough, each striving to take the delicacies of the banquet from the other, and yet enjoying always the warmth of the same dunghill in amicable contiguity, so had these young ladies lived in sisterly friendship, while each was striving to take a husband from the other. They had understood the position, and, though for years back they had talked about Mr. Gibson, they had never quarrelled; but now, in these latter days of the Stanbury interference, there had come tacitly to be something of an understanding between them that, if any fighting were still possible on the subject, one must be put forward and the other must yield. There had been no spoken agreement, but Arabella quite understood that she was to be put forward. It was for her to take up the running, and to win, if possible, against the Stanbury filly. That was her view, and she was inclined to give Camilla credit for acting in accordance with it with honesty and zeal. She felt, therefore, that her words on the present occasion ought to be few. She sat back in her corner of the sofa, and was intent on her work, and shewed by the pensiveness of her brow that there were thoughts within her bosom of which she was not disposed to speak. "You must have heard a great deal," said Camilla, laughing. "You must know how poor Mr. Gibson has been abused, because he wouldn't--"

"Camilla, don't be foolish," said Mrs. French.

"Because he wouldn't what?" asked Brooke. "What ought he to have done that he didn't do?"

"I don't know anything about ought," said Camilla. "That's a matter of taste altogether."

"I'm the worst hand in the world at a riddle," said Brooke.

"How sly you are," continued Camilla, laughing; "as if dear Aunt Stanbury hadn't confided all her hopes to you."

"Camilla, dear,--don't," said Arabella.

"But when a gentleman is hunted, and can't be caught, I don't think he ought to be abused to his face."

"But who hunted him, and who abused him?" asked Brooke.

"Mind, I don't mean to say a word against Miss Stanbury, Mr. Burgess. We've known her and loved her all our lives;--haven't we, mamma?"

"And respected her," said Arabella.

"Quite so," continued Camilla. "But you know, Mr. Burgess, that she likes her own way."

"I don't know anybody that does not," said Brooke.

"And when she's disappointed, she shows it. There's no doubt she is disappointed now, Mr. Burgess."

"What's the good of going on, Camilla?" said Mrs. French. Arabella sat silent in her corner, with a conscious glow of satisfaction, as she reflected that the joint disappointment of the elder and the younger Miss Stanbury had been caused by a tender remembrance of her own charms. Had not dear Mr. Gibson told her, in the glowing language of truth, that there was nothing further from his thoughts than the idea of taking Dorothy Stanbury for his wife?

"Well, you know," continued Camilla, "I think that when a person makes an attempt, and comes by the worst of it, that person should put up with the defeat, and not say all manner of ill-natured things. Everybody knows that a certain gentleman is very intimate in this house."

"Don't, dear," said Arabella, in a whisper.

"Yes, I shall," said Camilla. "I don't know why people should hold their tongues, when other people talk so loudly. I don't care a bit what anybody says about the gentleman and us. We have known him for ever so many years, and mamma is very fond of him."

"Indeed I am, Camilla," said Mrs. French.

"And for the matter of that, so am I,--very," said Camilla, laughing bravely. "I don't care who knows it."

"Don't be so silly, child," said Arabella. Camilla was certainly doing her best, and Arabella was grateful.

"We don't care what people may say," continued Camilla again. "Of course we heard, as everybody else heard too, that a certain gentleman was to be married to a certain lady. It was nothing to us whether he was married or not."

"Nothing at all," said Arabella.

"We never spoke ill of the young lady. We did not interfere. If the gentleman liked the young lady, he was quite at liberty to marry her, as far as we were concerned. We had been in the habit of seeing him here, almost as a brother, and perhaps we might feel that a connection with that particular young lady would take him from us; but we never hinted so much even as that,--to him or to anyone else. Why should we? It was nothing to us. Now it turns out that the gentleman never meant anything of the kind, whereupon he is pretty nearly kicked out of the house, and all manner of ill-natured things are said about us everywhere." By this time Camilla had become quite excited, and was speaking with much animation.

"How can you be so foolish, Camilla?" said Arabella.

"Perhaps I am foolish," said Camilla, "to care what anybody says."

"What can it all be to Mr. Burgess?" said Mrs. French.

"Only this, that as we all like Mr. Burgess, and as he is almost one of the family in the Close, I think he ought to know why we are not quite so cordial as we used to be. Now that the matter is over I have no doubt things will get right again. And as for the young lady, I'm sure we feel for her. We think it was the aunt who was indiscreet."

"And then she has such a tongue," said Arabella.

Our friend Brooke, of course, knew the whole truth;--knew the nature of Mr. Gibson's failure, and knew also how Dorothy had acted in the affair. He was inclined, moreover, to believe that the ladies who were now talking to him were as well instructed on the subject as was he himself. He had heard, too, of the ambition of the two young ladies now before him, and believed that that ambition was not yet dead. But he did not think it incumbent on him to fight a battle even on behalf of Dorothy. He might have declared that Dorothy, at least, had not been disappointed, but he thought it better to be silent about Dorothy. "Yes," he said, "Miss Stanbury has a tongue; but I think it speaks as much good as it does evil, and perhaps that is a great deal to say for any lady's tongue."

"We never speak evil of anybody," said Camilla; "never. It is a rule with us." Then Brooke took his leave, and the three ladies were cordial and almost affectionate in their farewell greetings.

Brooke was to start on the following morning before anybody would be up except Martha, and Miss Stanbury was very melancholy during the evening. "We shall miss him very much; shall we not?" she said, appealing to Dorothy. "I am sure you will miss him very much," said Dorothy. "We are so stupid here alone," said Miss Stanbury. When they had drank their tea, she sat nearly silent for half an hour, and then summoned him up into her own room. "So you are going, Brooke?" she said.

"Yes; I must go now. They would dismiss me if I stayed an hour longer."

"It was good of you to come to the old woman; and you must let me hear of you from time to time."

"Of course I'll write."

"And, Brooke,--"

"What is it, Aunt Stanbury?"

"Do you want any money, Brooke?"

"No;--none, thank you. I've plenty for a bachelor."

"When you think of marrying, Brooke, mind you tell me."

"I'll be sure to tell you;--but I can't promise yet when that will be." She said nothing more to him, though she paused once more as though she were going to speak. She kissed him and bade him good-bye, saying that she would not go down-stairs again that evening. He was to tell Dorothy to go to bed. And so they parted.

But Dorothy did not go to bed for an hour after that. When Brooke came down into the parlour with his message she intended to go at once, and put up her work, and lit her candle, and put out her hand to him, and said good-bye to him. But, for all that, she remained there for an hour with him. At first she said very little, but by degrees her tongue was loosened, and she found herself talking with a freedom which she could hardly herself understand. She told him how thoroughly she believed her aunt to be a good woman,--how sure she was that her aunt was at any rate honest. "As for me," said Dorothy, "I know that I have displeased her about Mr. Gibson;--and I would go away, only that I think she would be so desolate." Then Brooke begged her never to allow the idea of leaving Miss Stanbury to enter her head. Because Miss Stanbury was capricious, he said, not on that account should her caprices either be indulged or permitted. That was his doctrine respecting Miss Stanbury, and he declared that, as regarded himself, he would never be either disrespectful to her or submissive. "It is a great mistake," he said, "to think that anybody is either an angel or a devil." When Dorothy expressed an opinion that with some people angelic tendencies were predominant, and with others diabolic tendencies, he assented; but declared that it was not always easy to tell the one tendency from the other. At last, when Dorothy had made about five attempts to go, Mr. Gibson's name was mentioned. "I am very glad that you are not going to be Mrs. Gibson," said he.

"I don't know why you should be glad."

"Because I should not have liked your husband,--not as your husband."

"He is an excellent man, I'm sure," said Dorothy.

"Nevertheless I am very glad. But I did not think you would accept him, and I congratulate you on your escape. You would have been nothing to me as Mrs. Gibson."

"Shouldn't I?" said Dorothy, not knowing what else to say.

"But now I think we shall always be friends."

"I'm sure I hope so, Mr. Burgess. But indeed I must go now. It is ever so late, and you will hardly get any sleep. Good night." Then he took her hand, and pressed it very warmly, and referring to a promise before made to her, he assured her that he would certainly make acquaintance with her brother as soon as he was back in London. Dorothy, as she went up to bed, was more than ever satisfied with herself, in that she had not yielded in reference to Mr. Gibson.

XLV. TREVELYAN AT VENICE

Trevelyan passed on moodily and alone from Turin to Venice, always expecting letters from Bozzle, and receiving from time to time the dispatches which that functionary forwarded to him, as must be acknowledged, with great punctuality. For Mr. Bozzle did his work, not only with a conscience, but with a will. He was now, as he had declared more than once, altogether devoted to Mr. Trevelyan's interest; and as he was an active, enterprising man, always on the alert to be doing something, and as he loved the work of writing dispatches, Trevelyan received a great many letters from Bozzle. It is not exaggeration to say that every letter made him for the time a very wretched man. This ex-policeman wrote of the wife of his bosom,--of her who had been the wife of his bosom, and who was the mother of his child, who was at this very time the only woman whom he loved,--with an entire absence of delicacy. Bozzle would have thought reticence on his part to be dishonest. We remember Othello's demand of Iago. That was the demand which Bozzle understood that Trevelyan had made of him, and he was minded to obey that order. But Trevelyan, though he had in truth given the order, was like Othello also in this,--that he would have preferred before all the prizes of the world to have had proof brought home to him exactly opposite to that which he demanded. But there was nothing so terrible to him as the grinding suspicion that he was to be kept in the dark. Bozzle could find out facts. Therefore he gave, in effect, the same order that Othello gave;--and Bozzle went to work determined to obey it. There came many dispatches to Venice, and at last there came one, which created a correspondence which shall be given here at length. The first is a letter from Mr. Bozzle to his employer:--

55, Stony Walk, Union Street, Borough, September 29, 186--, 4.30 P.M.

HOND. SIR,

Since I wrote yesterday morning, something has occurred which, it may be, and I think it will, will help to bring this melancholy affair to a satisfactory termination and conclusion. I had better explain, Mr. Trewilyan, how I have been at work from the beginning about watching the Colonel. I couldn't do nothing with the porter at the Albany, which he is always mostly muzzled with beer, and he wouldn't have taken my money, not on the square. So, when it was tellegrammed to me as the Colonel was on the move in the North, I put on two boys as knows the Colonel, at eighteenpence a day, at each end, one Piccadilly end, and the other Saville Row end, and yesterday morning, as quick as ever could be, after the Limited Express Edinburgh Male Up was in, there comes the Saville Row End Boy here to say as the Colonel was lodged safe in his downey. Then I was off immediate myself to St. Diddulph's, because I knows what it is to trust to Inferiors when matters gets delicate. Now, there hadn't been no letters from the Colonel, nor none to him as I could make out, though that mightn't be so sure. She might have had 'em addressed to A. Z., or the like of that, at any of the Post-offices as was distant, as nobody could give the notice to 'em all. Barring the money, which I know ain't an object when the end is so desirable, it don't do to be too ubiketous, because things will go astray. But I've kept my eye uncommon open, and I don't think there have been no letters since that last which was sent, Mr. Trewilyan, let any of 'em, parsons, or what not, say what they will. And I don't see as parsons are better than other folk when they has to do with a lady as likes her fancy-man.

Trevelyan, when he had read as far as this, threw down the letter and tore his hair in despair. "My wife," he exclaimed, "Oh, my wife!" But it was essential that he should read Bozzle's letter, and he persevered.

Well; I took to the ground myself as soon as ever I heard that the Colonel was among us, and I hung out at the Full Moon. They had been quite on the square with me at the Full Moon, which I mention, because, of course, it has to be remembered, and it do come up as a hitem. And I'm proud, Mr. Trewilyan, as I did take to the ground myself; for what should happen but I see the Colonel as large as life ringing at the parson's bell at 1.47 p.m. He was let in at 1.49, and he was let out at 2.17. He went away in a cab which it was kept, and I followed him till he was put down at the Arcade, and I left him having his 'ed washed and greased at Trufitt's rooms, half-way up. It was a wonder to me when I see this, Mr. Trewilyan, as he didn't have his 'ed done first, as they most of 'em does when they're going to see their ladies; but I couldn't make nothing of that, though I did try to put too and too together, as I always does.

What he did at the parson's, Mr. Trewilyan, I won't say I saw, and I won't say I know. It's my opinion the young woman there isn't on the square, though she's been remembered too, and is a hitem of course. And, Mr. Trewilyan, it do go against the grain with me when they're remembered and ain't on the square. I doesn't expect too much of Human Nature, which is poor, as the saying goes; but when they're remembered and ain't on the square after that, it's too bad for Human Nature. It's more than poor. It's what I calls beggarly.

He ain't been there since, Mr. Trewilyan, and he goes out of town to-morrow by the 1.15 p.m. express to Bridport. So he lets on; but of course I shall see to that. That he's been at St. Diddulph's, in the house from 1.47 to 2.17, you may take as a fact. There won't be no shaking of that, because I have it in my mem. book, and no Counsel can get the better of it. Of course he went there to see her, and it's my belief he did. The young woman as was remembered says he didn't, but she isn't on the square. They never is when a lady wants to see her gentleman, though they comes round afterwards, and tells up everything when it comes before his ordinary lordship.

If you ask me, Mr. Trewilyan, I don't think it's ripe yet for the court, but we'll have it ripe before long. I'll keep a look-out, because it's just possible she may leave town. If she do, I'll be down upon them together, and no mistake.

Yours most respectful,

S. BOZZLE.

Every word in the letter had been a dagger to Trevelyan, and yet he felt himself to be under an obligation to the man who had written it. No one else would or could make facts known to him. If she were innocent, let him know that she were innocent, and he would proclaim her innocence, and believe in her innocence,--and sacrifice himself to her innocence, if such sacrifice were necessary. But if she were guilty, let him also know that. He knew how bad it was, all that bribing of postmen and maidservants, who took his money, and her money also, very likely. It was dirt, all of it. But who had put him into the dirt? His wife had, at least, deceived him,--had deceived him and disobeyed him, and it was necessary that he should know the facts. Life without a Bozzle would now have been to him a perfect blank.

The Colonel had been to the parsonage at St. Diddulph's, and had been admitted! As to that he had no doubt. Nor did he really doubt that his wife had seen the visitor. He had sent his wife first into a remote village on Dartmoor, and there she had been visited by her--lover! How was he to use any other word? Iago;--oh, Iago! The pity of it, Iago! Then, when she had learned that this was discovered, she had left the retreat in which he had placed her,--without permission from him,--and had taken herself to the house of a relative of hers. Here she was visited again by her--lover! Oh, Iago; the pity of it, Iago! And then there had been between them an almost constant correspondence. So much he had ascertained as fact; but he did not for a moment believe that Bozzle had learned all the facts. There might be correspondence, or even visits, of which Bozzle could learn nothing. How could Bozzle know where Mrs. Trevelyan was during all those hours which Colonel Osborne passed in London? That which he knew, he knew absolutely, and on that he could act; but there was, of course, much of which he knew nothing. Gradually the truth would unveil itself, and then he would act. He would tear that Colonel into fragments, and throw his wife from him with all the ignominy which the law made possible to him.

But in the meantime he wrote a letter to Mr. Outhouse. Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, had been admitted at the parsonage, and Trevelyan was determined to let the clergyman know what he thought about it. The oftener he turned the matter in his mind, as he walked slowly up and down the piazza of St. Mark, the more absurd it appeared to him to doubt that his wife had seen the man. Of course she had seen him. He walked there nearly the whole night, thinking of it, and as he dragged himself off at last to his inn, had almost come to have but one desire,--namely, that he should find her out, that the evidence should be conclusive, that it should be proved, and so brought to an end. Then he would destroy her, and destroy that man,--and afterwards destroy himself, so bitter to him would be his ignominy. He almost revelled in the idea of the tragedy he would make. It was three o'clock before he was in his bedroom, and then he wrote his letter to Mr. Outhouse before he took himself to his bed. It was as follows:--

Venice, Oct. 4, 186--.

SIR,

Information of a certain kind, on which I can place a firm reliance, has reached me, to the effect that Colonel Osborne has been allowed to visit at your house during the sojourn of my wife under your roof. I will thank you to inform me whether this be true; as, although I am confident of my facts, it is necessary, in reference to my ulterior conduct, that I should have from you either an admission or a denial of my assertion. It is of course open to you to leave my letter unanswered. Should you think proper to do so, I shall know also how to deal with that fact.

As to your conduct in admitting Colonel Osborne into your house while my wife is there,--after all that has passed, and all that you know that has passed,--I am quite unable to speak with anything like moderation of feeling. Had the man succeeded in forcing himself into your residence, you should have been the first to give me notice of it. As it is, I have been driven to ascertain the fact from other sources. I think that you have betrayed the trust that a husband has placed in you, and that you will find from the public voice that you will be regarded as having disgraced yourself as a clergyman.

In reference to my wife herself, I would wish her to know, that after what has now taken place, I shall not feel myself justified in leaving our child longer in her hands, even tender as are his years. I shall take steps for having him removed. What further I shall do to vindicate myself, and extricate myself as far as may be possible from the slough of despond in which I have been submerged, she and you will learn in due time.

Your obedient servant,

L. TREVELYAN.

A letter addressed "poste restante, Venice," will reach me here.

If Trevelyan was mad when he wrote this letter, Mr. Outhouse was very nearly as mad when he read it. He had most strongly desired to have nothing to do with his wife's niece when she was separated from her husband. He was a man honest, charitable, and sufficiently affectionate; but he was timid, and disposed to think ill of those whose modes of life were strange to him. Actuated by these feelings, he would have declined to offer the hospitality of his roof to Mrs. Trevelyan, had any choice been left to him. But there had been no choice. She had come thither unasked, with her boy and baggage, and he could not send her away. His wife had told him that it was his duty to protect these women till their father came, and he recognised the truth of what his wife said. There they were, and there they must remain throughout the winter. It was hard upon him,--especially as the difficulties and embarrassments as to money were so disagreeable to him;--but there was no help for it. His duty must be done though it were ever so painful. Then that horrid Colonel had come. And now had come this letter, in which he was not only accused of being an accomplice between his married niece and her lover, but was also assured that he should be held up to public ignominy and disgrace. Though he had often declared that Trevelyan was mad, he would not remember that now. Such a letter as he had received should have been treated by him as the production of a madman. But he was not sane enough himself to see the matter in that light. He gnashed his teeth, and clenched his fist, and was almost beside himself as he read the letter a second time.

There had been a method in Trevelyan's madness; for though he had declared to himself that without doubt Bozzle had been right in saying that as the Colonel had been at the parsonage, therefore, as a certainty, Mrs. Trevelyan had met the Colonel there, yet he had not so stated in his letter. He had merely asserted that Colonel Osborne had been at the house, and had founded his accusation upon that alleged fact. The alleged fact had been in truth a fact. So far Bozzle had been right. The Colonel had been at the parsonage; and the reader knows how far Mr. Outhouse had been to blame for his share in the matter! He rushed off to his wife with the letter, declaring at first that Mrs. Trevelyan, Nora, and the child, and the servant, should be sent out of the house at once. But at last Mrs. Outhouse succeeded in showing him that he would not be justified in ill-using them because Trevelyan had ill-used him. "But I will write to him," said Mr. Outhouse. "He shall know what I think about it." And he did write his letter that day, in spite of his wife's entreaties that he would allow the sun to set upon his wrath. And his letter was as follows:--

St. Diddulph's, October 8, 186--.

SIR,

I have received your letter of the 4th, which is more iniquitous, unjust, and ungrateful, than anything I ever before saw written. I have been surprised from the first at your gross cruelty to your unoffending wife; but even that seems to me more intelligible than your conduct in writing such words as those which you have dared to send to me.

For your wife's sake, knowing that she is in a great degree still in your power, I will condescend to tell you what has happened. When Mrs. Trevelyan found herself constrained to leave Nuncombe Putney by your aspersions on her character, she came here, to the protection of her nearest relatives within reach, till her father and mother should be in England. Sorely against my will I received them into my home, because they had been deprived of other shelter by the cruelty or madness of him who should have been their guardian. Here they are, and here they shall remain till Sir Marmaduke Rowley arrives. The other day, on the 29th of September, Colonel Osborne, who is their father's old friend, called, not on them, but on me. I may truly say that I did not wish to see Colonel Osborne. They did not see him, nor did he ask to see them. If his coming was a fault,--and I think it was a fault,--they were not implicated in it. He came, remained a few minutes, and went without seeing any one but myself. That is the history of Colonel Osborne's visit to my house.

I have not thought fit to show your letter to your wife, or to make her acquainted with this further proof of your want of reason. As to the threats which you hold out of removing her child from her, you can of course do nothing except by law. I do not think that even you will be sufficiently audacious to take any steps of that description. Whatever protection the law may give her and her child from your tyranny and misconduct cannot be obtained till her father shall be here.

I have only further to request that you will not address any further communication to me. Should you do so, it will be refused.

Yours in deep indignation,

OLIPHANT OUTHOUSE.

Trevelyan had also written two other letters to England, one to Mr. Bideawhile and the other to Bozzle. In the former he acquainted the lawyer that he had discovered that his wife still maintained her intercourse with Colonel Osborne, and that he must therefore remove his child from her custody. He then inquired what steps would be necessary to enable him to obtain possession of his little boy. In the letter to Bozzle he sent a cheque, and his thanks for the ex-policeman's watchful care. He desired Bozzle to continue his precautions, and explained his intentions about his son. Being somewhat afraid that Mr. Bideawhile might not be zealous on his behalf, and not himself understanding accurately the extent of his power with regard to his own child, or the means whereby he might exercise it, he was anxious to obtain assistance from Bozzle also on this point. He had no doubt that Bozzle knew all about it. He had great confidence in Bozzle. But still he did not like to consult the ex-policeman. He knew that it became him to have some regard for his own dignity. He therefore put the matter very astutely to Bozzle, asking no questions, but alluding to his difficulty in a way that would enable Bozzle to offer advice.

And where was he to get a woman to take charge of his child? If Lady Milborough would do it, how great would be the comfort! But he was almost sure that Lady Milborough would not do it. All his friends had turned against him, and Lady Milborough among the number. There was nobody left to him, but Bozzle. Could he entrust Bozzle to find some woman for him who would take adequate charge of the little fellow, till he himself could see to the child's education? He did not put this question to Bozzle in plain terms; but he was very astute, and wrote in such a fashion that Bozzle could make a proposal, if any proposal were within his power.

The answer from Mr. Outhouse came first. To this Mr. Trevelyan paid very little attention. It was just what he expected. Of course Mr. Outhouse's assurance about Colonel Osborne went for nothing. A man who would permit intercourse in his house between a married lady and her lover would not scruple to deny that he had permitted it. Then came Mr. Bideawhile's answer, which was very short. Mr. Bideawhile said that nothing could be done about the child till Mr. Trevelyan should return to England;--and that he could give no opinion as to what should be done then till he knew more of the circumstances. It was quite clear to Trevelyan that he must employ some other lawyer. Mr. Bideawhile had probably been corrupted by Colonel Osborne. Could Bozzle recommend a lawyer?

From Bozzle himself there came no other immediate reply than, "his duty, and that he would make further inquiries."

XLVI. THE AMERICAN MINISTER

In the second week in October, Mr. Glascock returned to Florence, intending to remain there till the weather should have become bearable at Naples. His father was said to be better, but was in such a condition as hardly to receive much comfort from his son's presence. His mind was gone, and he knew no one but his nurse; and, though Mr. Glascock was unwilling to put himself altogether out of the reach of returning at a day's notice, he did not find himself obliged to remain in Naples during the heat of the autumn. So Mr. Glascock returned to the hotel at Florence, accompanied by the tall man who wore the buttons. The hotel-keeper did not allow such a light to remain long hidden under a bushel, and it was soon spread far and wide that the Honourable Charles Glascock and his suite were again in the beautiful city.

And the fact was soon known to the American Minister and his family. Mr. Spalding was a man who at home had been very hostile to English interests. Many American gentlemen are known for such hostility. They make anti-English speeches about the country, as though they thought that war with England would produce certain triumph to the States, certain increase to American trade, and certain downfall to a tyranny which no Anglo-Saxon nation ought to endure. But such is hardly their real opinion. There, in the States, as also here in England, you shall from day to day hear men propounding, in very loud language, advanced theories of political action, the assertion of which is supposed to be necessary to the end which they have in view. Men whom we know to have been as mild as sucking doves in the political aspiration of their whole lives, suddenly jump up, and with infuriated gestures declare themselves the enemies of everything existing. When they have attained their little purpose,--or have failed to do so,--they revert naturally into their sucking-dove elements. It is so with Americans as frequently as with ourselves,--and there is no political subject on which it is considered more expedient to express pseudo-enthusiasm than on that of the sins of England. It is understood that we do not resent it. It is presumed that we regard it as the Irishman regarded his wife's cuffs. In the States a large party, which consists chiefly of those who have lately left English rule, and who are keen to prove to themselves how wise they have been in doing so, is pleased by this strong language against England; and, therefore, the strong language is spoken. But the speakers, who are, probably, men knowing something of the world, mean it not at all; they have no more idea of war with England than they have of war with all Europe; and their respect for England and for English opinion is unbounded. In their political tones of speech and modes of action they strive to be as English as possible. Mr. Spalding's aspirations were of this nature. He had uttered speeches against England which would make the hair stand on end on the head of an uninitiated English reader. He had told his countrymen that Englishmen hugged their chains, and would do so until American hammers had knocked those chains from off their wounded wrists and bleeding ankles. He had declared that, if certain American claims were not satisfied, there was nothing left for Americans to do but to cross the ferry with such a sheriff's officer as would be able to make distraint on the great English household. He had declared that the sheriff's officer would have very little trouble. He had spoken of Canada as an outlying American territory, not yet quite sufficiently redeemed from savage life to be received into the Union as a State. There is a multiplicity of subjects of this kind ready to the hand of the American orator. Mr. Spalding had been quite successful, and was now Minister at Florence; but, perhaps, one of the greatest pleasures coming to him from his prosperity was the enjoyment of the society of well-bred Englishmen, in the capital to which he had been sent. When, therefore, his wife and nieces pointed out to him the fact that it was manifestly his duty to call upon Mr. Glascock after what had passed between them on that night under the Campanile, he did not rebel for an instant against the order given to him. His mind never reverted for a moment to that opinion which had gained for him such a round of applause, when expressed on the platform of the Temperance Hall at Nubbly Creek, State of Illinois, to the effect that the English aristocrat, thorough-born and thorough-bred, who inherited acres and titles from his father, could never be fitting company for a thoughtful Christian American citizen. He at once had his hat brushed, and took up his best gloves and umbrella, and went off to Mr. Glascock's hotel. He was strictly enjoined by the ladies to fix a day on which Mr. Glascock would come and dine at the American embassy.

"'C. G.' has come back to see you," said Olivia to her elder sister. They had always called him "C. G." since the initials had been seen on the travelling bag.

"Probably," said Carry. "There is so very little else to bring people to Florence, that there can hardly be any other reason for his coming. They do say it's terribly hot at Naples just now; but that can have had nothing to do with it."

"We shall see," said Livy. "I'm sure he's in love with you. He looked to me just like a proper sort of lover for you, when I saw his long legs creeping up over our heads into the banquette."

"You ought to have been very much obliged to his long legs;--so sick as you were at the time."

"I like him amazingly," said Livy, "legs and all. I only hope Uncle Jonas won't bore him, so as to prevent his coming."

"His father is very ill," said Carry, "and I don't suppose we shall see him at all."

But the American Minister was successful. He found Mr. Glascock sitting in his dressing-gown, smoking a cigar, and reading a newspaper. The English aristocrat seemed very glad to see his visitor, and assumed no airs at all. The American altogether forgot his speech at Nubbly Creek, and found the aristocrat's society to be very pleasant. He lit a cigar, and they talked about Naples, Rome, and Florence. Mr. Spalding, when the marbles of old Rome were mentioned, was a little too keen in insisting on the merits of Story, Miss Hosmer, and Hiram Powers, and hardly carried his listener with him in the parallel which he drew between Greenough and Phidias; and he was somewhat repressed by the apathetic curtness of Mr. Glascock's reply, when he suggested that the victory gained by the gunboats at Vicksburg, on the Mississippi, was vividly brought to his mind by an account which he had just been reading of the battle of Actium; but he succeeded in inducing Mr. Glascock to accept an invitation to dinner for the next day but one, and the two gentlemen parted on the most amicable terms.

Everybody meets everybody in Florence every day. Carry and Livy Spalding had met Mr. Glascock twice before the dinner at their uncle's house, so that they met at dinner quite as intimate friends. Mrs. Spalding had very large rooms, up three flights of stairs, on the Lungarno. The height of her abode was attributed by Mrs. Spalding to her dread of mosquitoes. She had not yet learned that people in Florence require no excuse for being asked to walk up three flights of stairs. The rooms, when they were reached, were very lofty, floored with what seemed to be marble, and were of a nature almost to warrant Mrs. Spalding in feeling that nature had made her more akin to an Italian countess than to a matron of Nubbly Creek, State of Illinois, where Mr. Spalding had found her and made her his own. There was one other Englishman present, Mr. Harris Hyde Granville Gore, from the Foreign Office, now serving temporarily at the English Legation in Florence; and an American, Mr. Jackson Unthank, a man of wealth and taste, who was resolved on having such a collection of pictures at his house in Baltimore that no English private collection should in any way come near to it; and a Tuscan, from the Italian Foreign Office, to whom nobody could speak except Mr. Harris Hyde Granville Gore,--who did not indeed seem to enjoy the efforts of conversation which were expected of him. The Italian, who had a handle to his name,--he was a Count Buonarosci,--took Mrs. Spalding in to dinner. Mrs. Spalding had been at great trouble to ascertain whether this was proper, or whether she should not entrust herself to Mr. Glascock. There were different points to be considered in the matter. She did not quite know whether she was in Italy or in America. She had glimmerings on the subject of her privilege to carry her own nationality into her own drawing-room. And then she was called upon to deal between an Italian Count with an elder brother, and an English Honourable, who had no such incumbrance. Which of the two was possessed of the higher rank? "I've found it all out, Aunt Mary," said Livy. "You must take the Count." For Livy wanted to give her sister every chance. "How have you found it out?" said the aunt. "You may be sure it is so," said Livy. And the lady in her doubt yielded the point. Mrs. Spalding, as she walked along the passage on the Count's arm, determined that she would learn Italian. She would have given all Nubbly Creek to have been able to speak a word to Count Buonarosci. To do her justice, it must be admitted that she had studied a few words. But her courage failed her, and she could not speak them. She was very careful, however, that Mr. H. H. G. Gore was placed in the chair next to the Count.

"We are very glad to see you here," said Mr. Spalding, addressing himself especially to Mr. Glascock, as he stood up at his own seat at the round table. "In leaving my own country, sir, there is nothing that I value more than the privilege of becoming acquainted with those whose historic names and existing positions are of such inestimable value to the world at large." In saying this, Mr. Spalding was not in the least insincere, nor did his conscience at all prick him in reference to that speech at Nubbly Creek. On both occasions he half thought as he spoke,--or thought that he thought so. Unless it be on subjects especially endeared to us the thoughts of but few of us go much beyond this.

Mr. Glascock, who sat between Mrs. Spalding and her niece, was soon asked by the elder lady whether he had been in the States. No; he had not been in the States. "Then you must come, Mr. Glascock," said Mrs. Spalding, "though I will not say, dwelling as we now are in the metropolis of the world of art, that we in our own homes have as much of the outer beauty of form to charm the stranger as is to be found in other lands. Yet I think that the busy lives of men, and the varied institutions of a free country, must always have an interest peculiarly their own." Mr. Glascock declared that he quite agreed with her, and expressed a hope that he might some day find himself in New York.

"You wouldn't like it at all," said Carry; "because you are an aristocrat. I don't mean that it would be your fault."

"Why should that prevent my liking it,--even if I were an aristocrat?"

"One half of the people would run after you, and the other half would run away from you," said Carry.

"Then I'd take to the people who ran after me, and would not regard the others."

"That's all very well,--but you wouldn't like it. And then you would become unfair to what you saw. When some of our speechifying people talked to you about our institutions through their noses, you would think that the institutions themselves must be bad. And we have nothing to show except our institutions."

"What are American institutions?" asked Mr. Glascock.

"Everything is an institution. Having iced water to drink in every room of the house is an institution. Having hospitals in every town is an institution. Travelling altogether in one class of railway cars is an institution. Saying sir, is an institution. Teaching all the children mathematics is an institution. Plenty of food is an institution. Getting drunk is an institution in a great many towns. Lecturing is an institution. There are plenty of them, and some are very good;--but you wouldn't like it."

"At any rate, I'll go and see," said Mr. Glascock.

"If you do, I hope we may be at home," said Miss Spalding.

Mr. Spalding, in the mean time, with the assistance of his countryman, the man of taste, was endeavouring to explain a certain point in American politics to the Count. As, in doing this, they called upon Mr. Gore to translate every speech they made into Italian, and as Mr. Gore had never offered his services as an interpreter, and as the Italian did not quite catch the subtle meanings of the Americans in Mr. Gore's Tuscan version, and did not in the least wish to understand the things that were explained to him, Mr. Gore and the Italian began to think that the two Americans were bores. "The truth is, Mr. Spalding," said Mr. Gore, "I've got such a cold in my head, that I don't think I can explain it any more." Then Livy Spalding laughed aloud, and the two American gentlemen began to eat their dinner. "It sounds ridiculous, don't it?" said Mr. Gore, in a whisper.

"I ought not to have laughed, I know," said Livy.

"The very best thing you could have done. I shan't be troubled any more now. The fact is, I know just nine words of Italian. Now there is a difficulty in having to explain the whole theory of American politics to an Italian, who doesn't want to know anything about it, with so very small a repertory of words at one's command."

"How well you did it!"

"Too well. I felt that. So well that, unless I had stopped it, I shouldn't have been able to say a word to you all through dinner. Your laughter clenched it, and Buonarosci and I will be grateful to you for ever."

After the ladies went there was rather a bad half hour for Mr. Glascock. He was button-holed by the minister, and found it oppressive before he was enabled to escape into the drawing-room. "Mr. Glascock," said the minister, "an English gentleman, sir, like you, who has the privilege of an hereditary seat in your parliament,"--Mr. Glascock was not quite sure whether he were being accused of having an hereditary seat in the House of Commons, but he would not stop to correct any possible error on that point,--"and who has been born to all the gifts of fortune, rank, and social eminence, should never think that his education is complete till he has visited our great cities in the west." Mr. Glascock hinted that he by no means conceived his education to be complete; but the minister went on without attending to this. "Till you have seen, sir, what men can do who are placed upon the earth with all God's gifts of free intelligence, free air, and a free soil, but without any of those other good things which we are accustomed to call the gifts of fortune, you can never become aware of the infinite ingenuity of man." There had been much said before, but just at this moment Mr. Gore and the American left the room, and the Italian followed them briskly. Mr. Glascock at once made a decided attempt to bolt; but the minister was on the alert, and was too quick for him. And he was by no means ashamed of what he was doing. He had got his guest by the coat, and openly declared his intention of holding him. "Let me keep you for a few minutes, sir," said he, "while I dilate on this point in one direction. In the drawing-room female spells are too potent for us male orators. In going among us, Mr. Glascock, you must not look for luxury or refinement, for you will find them not. Nor must you hope to encounter the highest order of erudition. The lofty summits of acquired knowledge tower in your country with an altitude we have not reached yet."

"It's very good of you to say so," said Mr. Glascock.

"No, sir. In our new country and in our new cities we still lack the luxurious perfection of fastidious civilisation. But, sir, regard our level. That is what I say to every unprejudiced Britisher that comes among us; look at our level. And when you have looked at our level, I think that you will confess that we live on the highest table-land that the world has yet afforded to mankind. You follow my meaning, Mr. Glascock?" Mr. Glascock was not sure that he did, but the minister went on to make that meaning clear. "It is the multitude that with us is educated. Go into their houses, sir, and see how they thumb their books. Look at the domestic correspondence of our helps and servants, and see how they write and spell. We haven't got the mountains, sir, but our table-lands are the highest on which the bright sun of our Almighty God has as yet shone with its illuminating splendour in this improving world of ours! It is because we are a young people, sir,--with nothing as yet near to us of the decrepitude of age. The weakness of age, sir, is the penalty paid by the folly of youth. We are not so wise, sir, but what we too shall suffer from its effects as years roll over our heads." There was a great deal more, but at last Mr. Glascock did escape into the drawing-room.

"My uncle has been saying a few words to you perhaps," said Carry Spalding.

"Yes; he has," said Mr. Glascock.

"He usually does," said Carry Spalding.