rooke, whom she now addressed as "Dear Mr. Burgess," that
it could not be as he would have it; and she told her aunt,--with
some terse independence of expression, which Miss Stanbury quite
understood,--that she had considered the matter, and had thought it
right to refuse Mr. Burgess's offer.

"Don't you think she is very much changed?" said Mrs. Stanbury to her
eldest daughter.

"Not changed in the least, mother; but the sun has opened the bud,
and now we see the fruit."

CHAPTER LIX.

MR. BOZZLE AT HOME.

[Illustration]

It had now come to pass that Trevelyan had not a friend in the world
to whom he could apply in the matter of his wife and family. In the
last communication which he had received from Lady Milborough she
had scolded him, in terms that were for her severe, because he had
not returned to his wife and taken her off with him to Naples. Mr.
Bideawhile had found himself obliged to decline to move in the matter
at all. With Hugh Stanbury, Trevelyan had had a direct quarrel. Mr.
and Mrs. Outhouse he regarded as bitter enemies, who had taken the
part of his wife without any regard to the decencies of life. And now
it had come to pass that his sole remaining ally, Mr. Samuel Bozzle,
the ex-policeman, was becoming weary of his service. Trevelyan
remained in the north of Italy up to the middle of March, spending a
fortune in sending telegrams to Bozzle, instigating Bozzle by all the
means in his power to obtain possession of the child, desiring him at
one time to pounce down upon the parsonage of St. Diddulph's with a
battalion of policemen armed to the teeth with the law's authority,
and at another time suggesting to him to find his way by stratagem
into Mr. Outhouse's castle and carry off the child in his arms. At
last he sent word to say that he himself would be in England before
the end of March, and would see that the majesty of the law should be
vindicated in his favour.

Bozzle had in truth made but one personal application for the child
at St. Diddulph's. In making this he had expected no success, though,
from the energetic nature of his disposition, he had made the attempt
with some zeal. But he had never applied again at the parsonage,
disregarding the letters, the telegrams, and even the promises which
had come to him from his employer with such frequency. The truth was
that Mrs. Bozzle was opposed to the proposed separation of the mother
and the child, and that Bozzle was a man who