made no
attempt to set her mistress right on that point.

But the cause of Miss Stanbury's sharpest anger was not to be found
in Mr. Gibson's conduct either before Dorothy's refusal of his offer,
or on the occasion of his being turned out of the house. A base
rumour was spread about the city that Dorothy Stanbury had been
offered to Mr. Gibson, that Mr. Gibson had civilly declined the
offer,--and that hence had arisen the wrath of the Juno of the Close.
Now this was not to be endured by Miss Stanbury. She had felt even
in the moment of her original anger against Mr. Gibson that she was
bound in honour not to tell the story against him. She had brought
him into the little difficulty, and she at least would hold her
tongue. She was quite sure that Dorothy would never boast of her
triumph. And Martha had been strictly cautioned,--as indeed, also,
had Brooke Burgess. The man had behaved like an idiot, Miss Stanbury
said; but he had been brought into a little dilemma, and nothing
should be said about it from the house in the Close. But when the
other rumour reached Miss Stanbury's ears, when Mrs. Crumbie condoled
with her on her niece's misfortune, when Mrs. MacHugh asked whether
Mr. Gibson had not behaved rather badly to the young lady, then our
Juno's celestial mind was filled with a divine anger. But even then
she did not declare the truth. She asked a question of Mrs. Crumbie,
and was enabled, as she thought, to trace the falsehood to the
Frenches. She did not think that Mr. Gibson could on a sudden have
become so base a liar. "Mr. Gibson fast and loose with my niece!" she
said to Mrs. MacHugh. "You have not got the story quite right, my
dear friend. Pray, believe me;--there has been nothing of that sort."
"I dare say not," said Mrs. MacHugh, "and I'm sure I don't care. Mr.
Gibson has been going to marry one of the French girls for the last
ten years, and I think he ought to make up his mind and do it at
last."

"I can assure you he is quite welcome as far as Dorothy is
concerned," said Miss Stanbury.

Without a doubt the opinion did prevail throughout Exeter that Mr.
Gibson, who had been regarded time out of mind as the property of
the Miss Frenches, had been angled for by the ladies in the Close,
that he had nearly been caught, but that he had slipped the hook
out of his mouth, and was now about to subside quietly into the net
which had been originally prepared for him. Arabella French had not
spoken loudly on the