best foot foremost on
such an occasion. The Dean will be there, of course. I'm afraid the
Bishop cannot come up from Farnham, because he will have friends with
him. I am afraid John Gordon will have gone by that time, or else we
certainly would have had him down. I should like John Gordon to be
present, because he would see how the kind of thing is done." The
name of John Gordon at once silenced all the matrimonial chit-chat
which was going on among them. It was manifest both to Mr
Whittlestaff and to Mary that it had been lugged in without a cause,
to enable Mr Blake to talk about the absent man. "It would have been
pleasant; eh, Kattie?"

"We should have been very glad to see Mr Gordon, if it would have
suited him to come," said Miss Forrester.

"It would have been just the thing for him; and we at Oxford
together, and everything. Don't you think he would have liked to be
there? It would have put him in mind of other things, you know."

To this appeal there was no answer made. It was impossible that Mary
should bring herself to talk about John Gordon in mixed company.
And the allusion to him stirred Mr Whittlestaff's wrath. Of course
it was understood as having been spoken in Mary's favour. And Mr
Whittlestaff had been made to perceive by what had passed at Little
Alresford that the Little Alresford people all took the side of John
Gordon, and were supposed to be taking the side of Mary at the same
time. There was not one of them, he said to himself, that had half
the sense of Mrs Baggett. And there was a vulgarity about their
interference of which Mrs Baggett was not guilty.

"He is half way on his road to the diamond-fields," said Evelina.

"And went away from here on Saturday morning!" said Montagu Blake.
"He has not started yet,--not dreamed of it. I heard him whisper to
Mr Whittlestaff about his address. He's to be in London at his club.
I didn't hear him say for how long, but when a man gives his address
at his club he doesn't mean to go away at once. I have a plan in my
head. Some of those boats go to the diamond-fields from Southampton.
All the steamers go everywhere from Southampton. Winchester is on the
way to Southampton. Nothing will be easier for him than to drop in
for our marriage on his way out. That is, if he must go at last."
Then he looked hard at Mary Lawrie.

"And bring some of his diamonds with him," said Evelina Hall. "That
would be very nice." But not a word more was said then about Joh