“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 forever. 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 by, 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 anyone 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
Showing 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 anyone. 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
