I must confess he's not very nice," said Charlotte Stanhope.

"Nice!" said Eleanor. "He is the most fulsome, fawning, abominable
man I ever saw. What business had he to come to me?--I that never
gave him the slightest tittle of encouragement--I that always hated
him, though I did take his part when others ran him down."

"That's just where it is, my dear. He has heard that and therefore
fancied that of course you were in love with him."

This was wormwood to Eleanor. It was in fact the very thing which
all her friends had been saying for the last month past--and which
experience now proved to be true. Eleanor resolved within herself
that she would never again take any man's part. The world, with all
its villainy and all its ill-nature, might wag as it liked: she would
not again attempt to set crooked things straight.

"But what did he do, my dear?" said Charlotte, who was really rather
interested in the subject.

"He--he--he--"

"Well--come, it can't have been anything so very horrid, for the man
was not tipsy."

"Oh, I am sure he was" said Eleanor. "I am sure he must have been
tipsy."

"Well, I declare I didn't observe it. But what was it, my love?"

"Why, I believe I can hardly tell you. He talked such horrid stuff
that you never heard the like: about religion, and heaven, and love.
Oh, dear--he is such a nasty man."

"I can easily imagine the sort of stuff he would talk. Well--and
then--?"

"And then--he took hold of me."

"Took hold of you?"

"Yes--he somehow got close to me and took hold of me--"

"By the waist?"

"Yes," said Eleanor shuddering.

"And then--"

"Then I jumped away from him, and gave him a slap on the face, and
ran away along the path till I saw you."

"Ha, ha, ha!" Charlotte Stanhope laughed heartily at the finale to
the tragedy. It was delightful to her to think that Mr. Slope had
had his ears boxed. She did not quite appreciate the feeling which
made her friend so unhappy at the result of the interview. To her
thinking the matter had ended happily enough as regarded the widow,
who indeed was entitled to some sort of triumph among her friends.
Whereas to Mr. Slope would be due all those gibes and jeers which
would naturally follow such an affair. His friends would ask him
whether his ears tingled whenever he saw a widow, and he would be
cautioned that beautiful things were made to be looked at and not to
be touched.

Such were Charlotte Stanhope's views on such matters,