son, mamma, I beg that I mayn't hear anything
said against him. Then there came all this about that young woman;
and when I saw that Arabella took on so,--which I must say was very
absurd,--I'm sure I put myself out of the way entirely. If I'd buried
myself under the ground I couldn't have done it more. And it's my
belief that what I've said, all for Arabella's sake, has put the old
woman into such a rage that it has made a quarrel between him and the
niece; otherwise that wouldn't be off. I don't believe a word of her
refusing him, and never shall. Is it in the course of things, mamma?"
Mrs. French shook her head. "Of course not. Then when you question
him,--very properly,--he says that he's devoted to--poor me. If I was
to refuse him, he wouldn't put up with Bella."

"I suppose not," said Mrs. French.

"He hates Bella. I've known it all along, though I wouldn't say
so. If I were to sacrifice myself ever so it wouldn't be of any
good,--and I shan't do it." In this way the matter was arranged.

At the end of the fortnight, however, Mr. Gibson did not come,--nor
at the end of three weeks. Inquiries had of course been made, and it
was ascertained that he had gone into Cornwall for a parson's holiday
of thirteen days. That might be all very well. A man might want the
recruiting vigour of some change of air after such scenes as those
Mr. Gibson had gone through with the Stanburys, and before his
proposed encounter with new perils. And he was a man so tied by the
leg that his escape could not be for any long time. He was back
on the appointed Sunday, and on the Wednesday Mrs. French, under
Camilla's instruction, wrote to him a pretty little note. He replied
that he would be with her on the Saturday. It would then be nearly
four weeks after the great day with Miss Stanbury, but no one would
be inclined to quarrel with so short a delay as that. Arabella in the
meantime had become fidgety and unhappy. She seemed to understand
that something was expected, being quite unable to guess what that
something might be. She was true throughout these days to the
simplicity of head-gear which Mr. Gibson had recommended to her,
and seemed in her questions to her mother and to Camilla to be more
fearful of Dorothy Stanbury than of any other enemy. "Mamma, I think
you ought to tell her," said Camilla more than once. But she had not
been told when Mr. Gibson came on the Saturday. It may truly be said
that the poor mother's pleasure in the