ee him because she was so vile a coward
that she could not bear the sour looks of an old woman! "I will come
down directly," she said, when Fanny at last knocked at the door,
begging to be admitted. "I won't open it, love, but I will be with
you in ten minutes; I will, indeed." And so she was; not, perhaps,
without traces of tears, discernible by the experienced eye of Mrs.
Robarts, but yet with a smooth brow, and voice under her own command.

"I wonder whether she really loves him," Mark said to his wife that
night.

"Love him!" his wife had answered: "indeed she does; and, Mark, do
not be led away by the stern quiet of her demeanour. To my thinking
she is a girl who might almost die for love."

On the next day Lord Lufton left Framley; and started, according to
his arrangements, for the Norway salmon fishing.

CHAPTER XXXII

The Goat and Compasses

Harold Smith had been made unhappy by that rumour of a dissolution;
but the misfortune to him would be as nothing compared to the
severity with which it would fall on Mr. Sowerby. Harold Smith might
or might not lose his borough, but Mr. Sowerby would undoubtedly lose
his county; and, in losing that, he would lose everything. He felt
very certain now that the duke would not support him again, let who
would be master of Chaldicotes; and as he reflected on these things
he found it very hard to keep up his spirits. Tom Towers, it seems,
had known all about it, as he always does. The little remark which
had dropped from him at Miss Dunstable's, made, no doubt, after
mature deliberation, and with profound political motives, was the
forerunner, only by twelve hours, of a very general report that the
giants were going to the country. It was manifest that the giants had
not a majority in Parliament, generous as had been the promises of
support disinterestedly made to them by the gods. This indeed was
manifest, and therefore they were going to the country, although they
had been deliberately warned by a very prominent scion of Olympus
that if they did do so that disinterested support must be withdrawn.
This threat did not seem to weigh much, and by two o'clock on the day
following Miss Dunstable's party, the fiat was presumed to have gone
forth. The rumour had begun with Tom Towers, but by that time it had
reached Buggins at the Petty Bag Office. "It won't make no difference
to hus, sir; will it, Mr. Robarts?" said Buggins, as he leaned
respectfully against the wall