the best," said Arabella French, who was the
elder, and who looked very meek and soft. Miss French almost always
looked meek and soft.

"I'm afraid it will make it very dull for your mother,--not seeing
her old friends," said Mr. Gibson.

"Mamma won't feel that at all," said Dorothy.

"Mrs. Stanbury, I suppose, will see her own friends at her own house
just the same," said Camilla.

"There would be great difficulty in that, when there is a lady who is
to remain unknown," said Arabella. "Don't you think so, Mr. Gibson?"
Mr. Gibson replied that perhaps there might be a difficulty, but he
wasn't sure. The difficulty, he thought, might be got over if the
ladies did not always occupy the same room.

"You have never seen Mrs. Trevelyan, have you, Miss Stanbury?" asked
Camilla.

"Never."

"She is not an old family friend, then,--or anything of that sort?"

"Oh, dear, no."

"Because," said Arabella, "it is so odd how different people get
together sometimes." Then Dorothy explained that Mr. Trevelyan and
her brother Hugh had long been friends.

"Oh!--of Mr. Trevelyan," said Camilla. "Then it is he that has sent
his wife to Nuncombe, not she that has come there?"

"I suppose there has been some agreement," said Dorothy.

"Just so; just so," said Arabella, the meek. "I should like to see
her. They say that she is very beautiful; don't they?"

"My brother says that she is handsome."

"Exceedingly lovely, I'm told," said Camilla. "I should like to see
her,--shouldn't you, Mr. Gibson?"

"I always like to see a pretty woman," said Mr. Gibson, with a polite
bow, which the sisters shared between them.

"I suppose she'll go to church," said Camilla.

"Very likely not," said Arabella. "Ladies of that sort very often
don't go to church. I dare say you'll find that she'll never stir
out of the place at all, and that not a soul in Nuncombe will ever
see her except the gardener. It is such a thing for a woman to be
separated from her husband! Don't you think so, Mr. Gibson?"

"Of course it is," said he, with a shake of his head, which was
intended to imply that the censure of the church must of course
attend any sundering of those whom the church had bound together; but
which implied also by the absence from it of any intense clerical
severity, that as the separated wife was allowed to live with so very
respectable a lady as Mrs. Stanbury, there must probably be some
mitigating circumstances attending this special sep