He Knew He Was Right eBook

The more she thought of it, however, the greater seemed to be her difficulties.  What was she to do when her father and mother should have left her?  She could not go to Casalunga if her husband would not give her entrance; and if she did go, would it be safe for her to take her boy with her?  Were she to remain in Florence she would be hardly nearer to him for any useful purpose than in England; and even should she pitch her tent at Siena, occupying there some desolate set of huge apartments in a deserted palace, of what use could she be to him?  Could she stay there if he desired her to go; and was it probable that he would be willing that she should be at Siena while he was living at Casalunga, no more than two leagues distant?  How should she begin her work; and if he repulsed her, how should she then continue it?

But during these wedding hours she did make up her mind as to what she would do for the present.  She would certainly not leave Italy while her husband remained there.  She would for a while keep her rooms in Florence, and there should her boy abide.  But from time to time, twice a week perhaps, she would go down to Siena and Casalunga, and there form her plans in accordance with her husband’s conduct.  She was his wife, and nothing should entirely separate her from him, now that he so sorely wanted her aid.

CHAPTER LXXXVII

MR GLASCOCK’S MARRIAGE COMPLETED

The Glascock marriage was a great affair in Florence so much so, that there were not a few who regarded it as a strengthening of peaceful relations between the United States and the United Kingdom, and who thought that the Alabama claims and the question of naturalisation might now be settled with comparative ease.  An English lord was about to marry the niece of an American Minister to a foreign court.  The bridegroom was not, indeed, quite a lord as yet, but it was known to all men that he must be a lord in a very short time, and the bride was treated with more than usual bridal honours because she belonged to a legation.  She was not, indeed, an ambassador’s daughter, but the niece of a daughterless ambassador, and therefore almost as good as a daughter.  The wives and daughters of other ambassadors, and the ambassadors themselves, of course, came to the wedding; and as the palace in which Mr Spalding had apartments stood alone, in a garden, with a separate carriage entrance, it seemed for all wedding purposes as though the whole palace were his own.  The English Minister came, and his wife, although she had never quite given over turning up her nose at the American bride whom Mr Glascock had chosen for himself.  It was such a pity, she said, that such a man as Mr Glascock should marry a young woman from Providence, Rhode Island.  Who in England would know anything of Providence, Rhode Island?  And it was so expedient, in her estimation, that a man of family should strengthen