He Knew He Was Right

her sound senses have rejected such an offer. “I don’t believe a bit of it,” said Mrs. Crumbie to Mrs. Apjohn; “is it likely?” The ears of all the French family were keenly alive to rumours, and to rumours of rumours. Reports of these opinions respecting Mr. Gibson reached Heavitree, and had their effect. As long as Mr. Gibson was behaving well as a suitor, they were inoperative there. What did it matter to them how the prize might have been struggled for⁠—might still be struggled for elsewhere, while they enjoyed the consciousness of possession? But when the consciousness of possession became marred by a cankerous doubt, such rumours were very important. Camilla heard of the visit in the Close, and swore that she would have justice done her. She gave her mother to understand that, if any trick were played upon her, the diocese should be made to ring of it, in a fashion that would astonish them all, from the bishop downwards. Whereupon Mrs. French, putting much faith in her daughter’s threats, sent for Mr. Gibson.

“The truth is, Mr. Gibson,” said Mrs. French, when the civilities of their first greeting had been completed, “my poor child is pining.”

“Pining, Mrs. French!”

“Yes;⁠—pining, Mr. Gibson. I am afraid that you little understand how sensitive is that young heart. Of course, she is your own now. To her thinking, it would be treason to you for her to indulge in conversation with any other gentleman; but, then, she expects that you should spend your evenings with her⁠—of course!”

“But, Mrs. French⁠—think of my engagements, as a clergyman.”

“We know all about that, Mr. Gibson. We know what a clergyman’s calls are. It isn’t like a doctor’s, Mr. Gibson.”

“It’s very often worse, Mrs. French.”

“Why should you go calling in the Close, Mr. Gibson?” Here was the gist of the accusation.

“Wouldn’t you have me make my peace with a poor dying sister?” pleaded Mr. Gibson.

“After what has occurred,” said Mrs. French, shaking her head at him, “and while things are just as they are now, it would be more like an honest man of you to stay away. And, of course, Camilla feels it. She feels it very much;⁠—and she won’t put up with it neither.”

“I think this is the cruellest, cruellest thing I ever heard,” said Mr. Gibson.

“It is you that are cruel, sir.”

Then the wretched man turned at bay. “I tell you what it is, Mrs. French;⁠—if I am treated in this way, I won’t stand it. I won’t, indeed. I’ll go away. I’m not going to be suspected, nor yet blown up. I think I’ve behaved handsomely, at any rate to Camilla.”

“Quite so, Mr. Gibson, if you would come and see her on evenings,” said Mrs. French, who was falling back into her usual state of timidity.

“But, if I’m to be treated in this way, I will go away. I’ve thought of it as it is. I’ve been already invited to go to Natal, and if I hear anything more of these accusations, I shall certainly make up my mind to go.” Then he left the house, before Camilla could be down upon him from her perch on the landing-place.

LV

The Republican Browning

Mr. Glascock had returned to Naples after his sufferings in the dining-room of the American Minister, and by the middle of February was back again in Florence. His father was still alive, and it was said that the old lord would now probably live through the winter. And it was understood that Mr. Glascock would remain in Italy. He had declared that he would pass his time between Naples, Rome, and Florence; but it seemed to his friends that Florence was, of the three, the most to his taste. He liked his room, he said, at the York Hotel, and he liked being in the capital. That was his own statement. His friends said that he liked being with Carry Spalding, the daughter of the American Minister; but none of them, then in Italy, were sufficiently intimate with him to express that opinion to himself.

It had been expressed more than once to Carry Spalding. The world in general says such things to ladies more openly than it does to men, and the probability of a girl’s success in matrimony is canvassed in her hearing by those who are nearest to her with a freedom which can seldom be used in regard to a man. A man’s most intimate friend hardly speaks to him of the prospect of his marriage till he himself has told that the engagement exists. The lips of no living person had suggested to Mr. Glascock that the American girl was to become his wife; but a great deal had been said to Carry Spalding about the conquest she had made. Her uncle, her aunt, her sister, and her great friend Miss Petrie, the poetess⁠—the Republican Browning as she was called⁠—had all spoken to her about it frequently. Olivia had declared her conviction that the thing was to be. Miss Petrie had, with considerable eloquence, explained to her friend that that English title, which was but the clatter of a sounding brass, should be regarded as a drawback rather than as an advantage. Mrs. Spalding, who was no poetess, would undoubtedly have welcomed Mr. Glascock as her niece’s husband with all an aunt’s energy. When told by Miss Petrie that old Lord Peterborough was a tinkling cymbal she snapped angrily at her gifted countrywoman. But she was too honest a woman, and too conscious also of her niece’s strength, to say a word to urge her on. Mr. Spalding as an American minister, with full powers at the court of a European sovereign, felt that he had full as much to give as to receive; but he was well inclined to do both. He would have been much pleased to talk about his nephew Lord Peterborough, and he loved his niece dearly. But by the middle of February he was beginning to