“I don’t know. I wish that I had
none.”
“And, John;—I can understand her
feeling now; and, indeed, I thought all through that
you were asking her too soon; but the time may yet
come when she will think better of your wishes.”
“No, no; never. I begin to know her now.”
“If you can be constant in your love you may
win her yet. Remember how young she is; and how
young you both are. Come again in two years’
time, and then, when you have won her, you shall tell
me that I have been a good old woman to you both.”
“I shall never win her, Lady Julia.”
As he spoke these last words the tears were running
down his cheeks, and he was weeping openly in presence
of his companion. It was well for him that she
had come upon him in his sorrow. When he once
knew that she had seen his tears, he could pour out
to her the whole story of his grief; and as he did
so she led him back quietly to the house.
Not Very Fie Fie after All
It will perhaps be remembered that terrible things
had been foretold as about to happen between the Hartletop
and Omnium families. Lady Dumbello had smiled
whenever Mr Plantagenet Palliser had spoken to her.
Mr Palliser had confessed to himself that politics
were not enough for him, and that Love was necessary
to make up the full complement of his happiness.
Lord Dumbello had frowned latterly when his eyes fell
on the tall figure of the duke’s heir; and the
duke himself,—that potentate, generally
so mighty in his silence,—the duke himself
had spoken. Lady de Courcy and Lady Clandidlem
were, both of them, absolutely certain that the thing
had been fully arranged. I am, therefore, perfectly
justified in stating that the world was talking about
the loves,—the illicit loves,—of
Mr Palliser and Lady Dumbello.
And the talking of the world found its way down to
that respectable country parsonage in which Lady Dumbello
had been born, and from which she had been taken away
to those noble halls which she now graced by her presence.
The talking of the world was heard at Plumstead Episcopi,
where still lived Archdeacon Grantly, the lady’s
father; and was heard also at the deanery of Barchester,
where lived the lady’s aunt and grandfather.
By whose ill-mannered tongue the rumour was spread
in these ecclesiastical regions it boots not now to
tell. But it may be remembered that Courcy Castle
was not far from Barchester, and that Lady de Courcy
was not given to hide her lights under a bushel.
It was a terrible rumour. To what mother must
not such a rumour respecting her daughter be very
terrible? In no mother’s ears could it
have sounded more frightfully than it did in those
of Mrs Grantly. Lady Dumbello, the daughter,
might be altogether worldly; but Mrs Grantly had never
been more than half worldly. In one moiety of
her character, her habits, and her desires, she had
been wedded to things good in themselves,—to
