.

"You'll be there with them?" said Camilla. Mr. Gibson blushed up to
his ears as he heard the suggestion. "Of course you'll be there with
them, mamma."

"No, my dear, I think not. I fancy she wishes him to read to her,--or
something of that sort." Then Mr. Gibson, without speaking a word,
but still blushing up to his ears, was taken to Arabella's room; and
Camilla, flouncing into the drawing-room, banged the door behind her.
She had hitherto fought her battle with considerable skill and with
great courage;--but her very success had made her imprudent. She
had become so imperious in the great position which she had reached,
that she could not control her temper or wait till her power was
confirmed. The banging of that door was heard through the whole
house, and every one knew why it was banged. She threw herself on to
a sofa, and then, instantly rising again, paced the room with quick
step. Could it be possible that there was treachery? Was it on the
cards that that weak, poor creature, Bella, was intriguing once again
to defraud her of her husband? There were different things that she
now remembered. Arabella, in that moment of bliss in which she had
conceived herself to be engaged to Mr. Gibson, had discarded her
chignon. Then she had resumed it,--in all its monstrous proportions.
Since that it had been lessened by degrees, and brought down, through
various interesting but abnormal shapes, to a size which would hardly
have drawn forth any anathema from Miss Stanbury. And now, on this
very morning, Arabella had put on a clean nightcap, with muslin
frills. It is perhaps not unnatural that a sick lady, preparing
to receive a clergyman in her bedroom, should put on a clean
nightcap,--but to suspicious eyes small causes suffice to create
alarm. And if there were any such hideous wickedness in the wind, had
Arabella any colleague in her villainy? Could it be that the mother
was plotting against her daughter's happiness and respectability?
Camilla was well aware that her mamma would at first have preferred
to give Arabella to Mr. Gibson, had the choice in the matter been
left to her. But now, when the thing had been settled before all
the world, would not such treatment on a mother's part be equal to
infanticide? And then as to Mr. Gibson himself! Camilla was not
prone to think little of her own charms, but she had been unable
not to perceive that her lover had become negligent in his personal
attentions to her. An accep