y by further
disobedience," he said.

"You will let me come again?" To this he made no reply. "Tell me that
I may come again."

"I do not think that I shall remain here long."

"And I may not stay now?"

"That would be impossible. There is no accommodation for you."

"I could sleep on the boards beside his cot," said Mrs. Trevelyan.

"That is my place," he replied. "You may know that he is not
disregarded. With my own hands I tend him every morning. I take him
out myself. I feed him myself. He says his prayers to me. He learns
from me, and can say his letters nicely. You need not fear for him.
No mother was ever more tender with her child than I am with him."
Then he gently withdrew the boy from her arms, and she let her child
go, lest he should learn to know that there was a quarrel between
his father and his mother. "If you will excuse me," he said, "I will
not come down to you again to-day. My servant will see you to your
carriage."

So he left her; and she, with an Italian girl at her heels, got into
her vehicle, and was taken back to Siena. There she passed the night
alone at the inn, and on the next morning returned to Florence by the
railway.

CHAPTER LXXX.

"WILL THEY DESPISE HIM?"

Gradually the news of the intended marriage between Mr. Glascock and
Miss Spalding spread itself over Florence, and people talked about
it with that energy which subjects of such moment certainly deserve.
That Caroline Spalding had achieved a very great triumph, was, of
course, the verdict of all men and of all women; and I fear that
there was a corresponding feeling that poor Mr. Glascock had been
triumphed over, and as it were, subjugated. In some respects he had
been remiss in his duties as a bachelor visitor to Florence,--as a
visitor to Florence who had manifestly been much in want of a wife.
He had not given other girls a fair chance, but had thrown himself
down at the feet of this American female in the weakest possible
manner. And then it got about the town that he had been refused over
and over again by Nora Rowley. It is too probable that Lady Rowley
in her despair and dismay had been indiscreet, and had told secrets
which should never have been mentioned by her. And the wife of
the English minister, who had some grudges of her own, lifted her
eyebrows and shook her head and declared that all the Glascocks at
home would be outraged to the last degree. "My dear Lady Rowley,"
she said, "I don't know whe