Do not be frightened; I
tell you this to prevent mischief, not to prophesy it. Mr Hope will
take what measures he thinks fit: and I shall tell Mr Rowland, tomorrow
morning, that I am the source of your information. I was just going to
warn him to-day that I meant to speak to you in this way; but I left it
till to-morrow, that I might not be prevented."

"Dear Maria, this will cost you your bread."

"I believe not; but this consideration belongs to that future of time on
which, as I was saying, we cannot lay our little fingers. The present
is clear enough--that Mr Hope ought to know his own case."

"He shall know it. But, Maria, do you mean that Mrs Rowland talks of
all these affairs before her children?"

"When Mr Rowland is not present to check it. And this brings me to
something which I think ought to be said, though I have no proof to
bring. Having found of late what things Mrs Rowland can say for a
purpose--how variously and how monstrously untrue--and seeing that all
her enterprises are at present directed against the people who live in a
pleasant little corner-house--"

"But why? You have not yet fully accounted for this enmity."

"I have not, but I will now. I think she joins your name with her
brother's, and that she accordingly hates you now as she once hated
Hester. But mind, I am not sure of this."

"But how--? Why--?"

"You will divine that I have changed my opinion about Mr Enderby's
being engaged to Miss Bruce, since you asked me for my judgment upon it.
I may very possibly be mistaken: but as Mr Enderby lies under censure
for forming and carrying on such an arrangement in strange concealment
from his most intimate friends, I think it due to him at least to put
the supposition that he may not be guilty."

Margaret could not speak, though a thousand questions struggled in her
heart.

"I am aware," continued Maria, "with what confidence she has everywhere
stated the fact of this engagement, and that Mrs Enderby fully believes
it. But I have been struck throughout with a failure of particularity
in Mrs Rowland's knowledge. She cannot tell when her brother last saw
Miss Bruce, nor whether he has any intention of going to Rome. She does
not know, evidently, whether he was engaged when he was last here; and I
cannot get rid of the impression, that his being engaged now is a matter
of inference from a small set of facts, which will bear more than one
interpretation."

"Surely she woul