lainly; "I am so glad I have found you."

"Glad you have found me!" said Charlotte, laughing; "that's a good
joke. Why Bertie and I have been looking for you everywhere. He swears
that you have gone off with Mr. Slope, and is now on the point of
hanging himself."

"Oh, Charlotte, don't," said Mrs. Bold.

"Why, my child, what on earth is the matter with you?" said Miss
Stanhope, perceiving that Eleanor's hand trembled on her own arm,
and finding also that her companion was still half-choked by tears.
"Goodness heaven! Something has distressed you. What is it? What
can I do for you?"

Eleanor answered her only by a sort of spasmodic gurgle in her throat.
She was a good deal upset, as people say, and could not at the moment
collect herself.

"Come here, this way, Mrs. Bold; come this way, and we shall not be
seen. What has happened to vex you so? What can I do for you? Can
Bertie do anything?"

"Oh, no, no, no, no," said Eleanor. "There is nothing to be done. Only
that horrid man--"

"What horrid man?" asked Charlotte.

There are some moments in life in which both men and women feel
themselves imperatively called on to make a confidence, in which not
to do so requires a disagreeable resolution and also a disagreeable
suspicion. There are people of both sexes who never make confidences,
who are never tempted by momentary circumstances to disclose their
secrets, but such are generally dull, close, unimpassioned spirits,
"gloomy gnomes, who live in cold dark mines." There was nothing of
the gnome about Eleanor, and she therefore resolved to tell Charlotte
Stanhope the whole story about Mr. Slope.

"That horrid man; that Mr. Slope," said she. "Did you not see that he
followed me out of the dining-room?"

"Of course I did, and was sorry enough, but I could not help it.
I knew you would be annoyed. But you and Bertie managed it badly
between you."

"It was not his fault nor mine either. You know how I disliked the
idea of coming in the carriage with that man."

"I am sure I am very sorry if that has led to it."

"I don't know what has led to it," said Eleanor, almost crying again.
"But it has not been my fault."

"But what has he done, my dear?"

"He's an abominable, horrid, hypocritical man, and it would serve him
right to tell the bishop all about it."

"Believe me, if you want to do him an injury, you had far better tell
Mrs. Proudie. But what did he do, Mrs. Bold?"

"Ugh!" exclaimed Eleanor.

"Well,