ish. She would not let him escape by any such folly as
that which Cecilia Holt had committed. The Baronet should be allowed
his full swing till she was entitled to call herself Lady Geraldine.
Then, perhaps, there might be a tussle between them as to which
should have his own way,--or hers. The great thing at present was to
obtain the position, and she did feel that she had played her cards
uncommonly well as far as the game had gone at present.

But there came upon her an irresistible temptation to make her
triumph known among her friends at Exeter. All her girl friends had
got themselves married. There was Mrs. Green, and Mrs. Thorne, and
Mrs. Western. Poor Cecilia had not gained much, but still she was
Mrs. Western. Miss Altifiorla did in truth regard herself as Miss
Altifiorla with but small satisfaction. She had her theories about
women's rights, and the decided advantages of remaining single,
and the sufficiency of a lady to stand alone in the world. There
was probably some vague glimmering of truth in her ideas; some
half-formed belief in her own doctrine. But still it had ever been
an uncomfortable creed, and one which she was ready to desert at the
slightest provocation. Her friends had all deserted it, and had left
her as we say high and dry on the barren bank, while they had been
carried away by the fertilising stream. She, too, would now swim down
the river of matrimony with a beautiful name, and a handle to it, as
the owner of a fine family property. Women's rights was an excellent
doctrine to preach, but for practice could not stand the strain of
such temptation. And though in boasting of her good fortune she must
no doubt confess that she had been wrong, still there would be much
more of glory than of shame in the confession.

It was chance probably that made her tell her secret in the first
instance to Mrs. Thorne. Mrs. Thorne had been Maude Hippesley and was
niece to Sir Francis Geraldine. Miss Altifiorla had pledged herself
to Sir Francis not to make known her engagement at the Deanery.
But such pledges go for very little. Mrs. Thorne was not now an
inhabitant of Exeter, and was, so to say, the most bosom-friend left
to her,--after her disruption from Mrs. Western. Was it probable that
such a secret should be kept from a bosom-friend? Mrs. Thorne who had
a large circle of friends in the county would hardly have admitted
the claim, but she would be more likely to do so after receiving the
intimation.