regarded everything by which it had been proposed
to him to obtain the means of living. Eleanor Bold appeared before
him, no longer as a beautiful woman, but as a new profession called
matrimony. It was a profession indeed requiring but little labour,
and one in which an income was insured to him. But nevertheless he
had been as it were goaded on to it; his sister had talked to him of
Eleanor, just as she had talked of busts and portraits. Bertie did
not dislike money, but he hated the very thought of earning it. He
was now called away from his pleasant cigar to earn it, by offering
himself as a husband to Mrs. Bold. The work indeed was made easy
enough, for in lieu of his having to seek the widow, the widow had
apparently come to seek him.

He made some sudden absurd excuse to his auditor and then, throwing
away his cigar, climbed up the wall of the ha-ha and joined the ladies
on the lawn.

"Come and give Mrs. Bold an arm," said Charlotte, "while I set you on
a piece of duty which, as a _preux chevalier_, you must immediately
perform. Your personal danger will, I fear, be insignificant, as your
antagonist is a clergyman."

Bertie immediately gave his arm to Eleanor, walking between her and
his sister. He had lived too long abroad to fall into the Englishman's
habit of offering each an arm to two ladies at the same time--a habit,
by the by, which foreigners regard as an approach to bigamy, or a sort
of incipient Mormonism.

The little history of Mr. Slope's misconduct was then told to Bertie
by his sister, Eleanor's ears tingling the while. And well they might
tingle. If it were necessary to speak of the outrage at all, why
should it be spoken of to such a person as Mr. Stanhope, and why
in her own hearing? She knew she was wrong, and was unhappy and
dispirited, yet she could think of no way to extricate herself, no way
to set herself right. Charlotte spared her as much as she possibly
could, spoke of the whole thing as though Mr. Slope had taken a glass
of wine too much, said that of course there would be nothing more
about it, but that steps must be taken to exclude Mr. Slope from the
carriage.

"Mrs. Bold need be under no alarm about that," said Bertie, "for
Mr. Slope has gone this hour past. He told me that business made it
necessary that he should start at once for Barchester."

"He is not so tipsy, at any rate, but what he knows his fault," said
Charlotte. "Well, my dear, that is one difficulty over. Now I