________________________________________________
_ I had always understood that Miss Galindo had once been in much
better circumstances, but I had never liked to ask any questions
respecting her. But about this time many things came out respecting
her former life, which I will try and arrange: not however, in the
order in which I heard them, but rather as they occurred.
Miss Galindo was the daughter of a clergyman in Westmoreland. Her
father was the younger brother of a baronet, his ancestor having been
one of those of James the First's creation. This baronet-uncle of
Miss Galindo was one of the queer, out-of-the-way people who were
bred at that time, and in that northern district of England. I never
heard much of him from any one, besides this one great fact: that he
had early disappeared from his family, which indeed only consisted of
a brother and sister who died unmarried, and lived no one knew
where,--somewhere on the Continent, it was supposed, for he had never
returned from the grand tour which he had been sent to make,
according to the general fashion of the day, as soon as he had left
Oxford. He corresponded occasionally with his brother the clergyman;
but the letters passed through a banker's hands; the banker being
pledged to secrecy, and, as he told Mr. Galindo, having the penalty,
if he broke his pledge, of losing the whole profitable business, and
of having the management of the baronet's affairs taken out of his
hands, without any advantage accruing to the inquirer, for Sir
Lawrence had told Messrs. Graham that, in case his place of residence
was revealed by them, not only would he cease to bank with them, but
instantly take measures to baffle any future inquiries as to his
whereabouts, by removing to some distant country.
Sir Lawrence paid a certain sum of money to his brother's account
every year; but the time of this payment varied, and it was sometimes
eighteen or nineteen months between the deposits; then, again, it
would not be above a quarter of the time, showing that he intended it
to be annual, but, as this intention was never expressed in words, it
was impossible to rely upon it, and a great deal of this money was
swallowed up by the necessity Mr. Galindo felt himself under of
living in the large, old, rambling family mansion, which had been one
of Sir Lawrence's rarely expressed desires. Mr. and Mrs. Galindo
often planned to live upon their own small fortune and the income
derived from the living (a vicarage, of which the great tithes went
to Sir Lawrence as lay impropriator), so as to put-by the payments
made by the baronet, for the benefit of Laurentia--our Miss Galindo.
But I suppose they found it difficult to live economically in a large
house, even though they had it rent free. They had to keep up with
hereditary neighbours and friends, and could hardly help doing it in
the hereditary manner.
One of these neighbours, a Mr. Gibson, had a son a few years older
than Laurentia. The families were sufficiently intimate for the
young people to see a good deal of each other: and I was told that
this young Mr. Mark Gibson was an unusually prepossessing man (he
seemed to have impressed every one who spoke of him to me as being a
handsome, manly, kind-hearted fellow), just what a girl would be sure
to find most agreeable. The parents either forgot that their
children were growing up to man's and woman's estate, or thought that
the intimacy and probable attachment would be no bad thing, even if
it did lead to a marriage. Still, nothing was ever said by young
Gibson till later on, when it was too late, as it turned out. He
went to and from Oxford; he shot and fished with Mr. Galindo, or came
to the Mere to skate in winter-time; was asked to accompany Mr.
Galindo to the Hall, as the latter returned to the quiet dinner with
his wife and daughter; and so, and so, it went on, nobody much knew
how, until one day, when Mr. Galindo received a formal letter from
his brother's bankers, announcing Sir Lawrence's death, of malaria
fever, at Albano, and congratulating Sir Hubert on his accession to
the estates and the baronetcy. The king is dead--"Long live the
king!" as I have since heard that the French express it.
Sir Hubert and his wife were greatly surprised. Sir Lawrence was but
two years older than his brother; and they had never heard of any
illness till they heard of his death. They were sorry; very much
shocked; but still a little elated at the succession to the baronetcy
and estates. The London bankers had managed everything well. There
was a large sum of ready money in their hands, at Sir Hubert's
service, until he should touch his rents, the rent-roll being eight
thousand a-year. And only Laurentia to inherit it all! Her mother,
a poor clergyman's daughter, began to plan all sorts of fine
marriages for her; nor was her father much behind his wife in his
ambition. They took her up to London, when they went to buy new
carriages, and dresses, and furniture. And it was then and there she
made my lady's acquaintance. How it was that they came to take a
fancy to each other, I cannot say. My lady was of the old nobility,-
-grand, compose, gentle, and stately in her ways. Miss Galindo must
always have been hurried in her manner, and her energy must have
shown itself in inquisitiveness and oddness even in her youth. But I
don't pretend to account for things: I only narrate them. And the
fact was this:- that the elegant, fastidious countess was attracted
to the country girl, who on her part almost worshipped my lady. My
lady's notice of their daughter made her parents think, I suppose,
that there was no match that she might not command; she, the heiress
of eight thousand a-year, and visiting about among earls and dukes.
So when they came back to their old Westmoreland Hall, and Mark
Gibson rode over to offer his hand and his heart, and prospective
estate of nine hundred a-year, to his old companion and playfellow,
Laurentia, Sir Hubert and Lady Galindo made very short work of it.
They refused him plumply themselves; and when he begged to be allowed
to speak to Laurentia, they found some excuse for refusing him the
opportunity of so doing, until they had talked to her themselves, and
brought up every argument and fact in their power to convince her--a
plain girl, and conscious of her plainness--that Mr. Mark Gibson had
never thought of her in the way of marriage till after her father's
accession to his fortune; and that it was the estate--not the young
lady--that he was in love with. I suppose it will never be known in
this world how far this supposition of theirs was true. My Lady
Ludlow had always spoken as if it was; but perhaps events, which came
to her knowledge about this time, altered her opinion. At any rate,
the end of it was, Laurentia refused Mark, and almost broke her heart
in doing so. He discovered the suspicions of Sir Hubert and Lady
Galindo, and that they had persuaded their daughter to share in them.
So he flung off with high words, saying that they did not know a true
heart when they met with one; and that although he had never offered
till after Sir Lawrence's death, yet that his father knew all along
that he had been attached to Laurentia, only that he, being the
eldest of five children, and having as yet no profession, had had to
conceal, rather than to express, an attachment, which, in those days,
he had believed was reciprocated. He had always meant to study for
the bar, and the end of all he had hoped for had been to earn a
moderate income, which he might ask Laurentia to share. This, or
something like it, was what he said. But his reference to his father
cut two ways. Old Mr. Gibson was known to be very keen about money.
It was just as likely that he would urge Mark to make love to the
heiress, now she was an heiress, as that he would have restrained him
previously, as Mark said he had done. When this was repeated to
Mark, he became proudly reserved, or sullen, and said that Laurentia,
at any rate, might have known him better. He left the country, and
went up to London to study law soon afterwards; and Sir Hubert and
Lady Galindo thought they were well rid of him. But Laurentia never
ceased reproaching herself, and never did to her dying day, as I
believe. The words, "She might have known me better," told to her by
some kind friend or other, rankled in her mind, and were never
forgotten. Her father and mother took her up to London the next
year; but she did not care to visit--dreaded going out even for a
drive, lest she should see Mark Gibson's reproachful eyes--pined and
lost her health. Lady Ludlow saw this change with regret, and was
told the cause by Lady Galindo, who of course, gave her own version
of Mark's conduct and motives. My lady never spoke to Miss Galindo
about it, but tried constantly to interest and please her. It was at
this time that my lady told Miss Galindo so much about her own early
life, and about Hanbury, that Miss Galindo resolved, if ever she
could, she would go and see the old place which her friend loved so
well. The end of it all was, that she came to live there, as we
know.
But a great change was to come first. Before Sir Hubert and Lady
Galindo had left London on this, their second visit, they had a
letter from the lawyer, whom they employed, saying that Sir Lawrence
had left an heir, his legitimate child by an Italian woman of low
rank; at least, legal claims to the title and property had been sent
into him on the boy's behalf. Sir Lawrence had always been a man of
adventurous and artistic, rather than of luxurious tastes; and it was
supposed, when all came to be proved at the trial, that he was
captivated by the free, beautiful life they lead in Italy, and had
married this Neapolitan fisherman's daughter, who had people about
her shrewd enough to see that the ceremony was legally performed.
She and her husband had wandered about the shores of the
Mediterranean for years, leading a happy, careless, irresponsible
life, unencumbered by any duties except those connected with a rather
numerous family. It was enough for her that they never wanted money,
and that her husband's love was always continued to her. She hated
the name of England--wicked, cold, heretic England--and avoided the
mention of any subjects connected with her husband's early life. So
that, when he died at Albano, she was almost roused out of her
vehement grief to anger with the Italian doctor, who declared that he
must write to a certain address to announce the death of Lawrence
Galindo. For some time, she feared lest English barbarians might
come down upon her, making a claim to the children. She hid herself
and them in the Abruzzi, living upon the sale of what furniture and
jewels Sir Lawrence had died possessed of. When these failed, she
returned to Naples, which she had not visited since her marriage.
Her father was dead; but her brother inherited some of his keenness.
He interested the priests, who made inquiries and found that the
Galindo succession was worth securing to an heir of the true faith.
They stirred about it, obtained advice at the English Embassy; and
hence that letter to the lawyers, calling upon Sir Hubert to
relinquish title and property, and to refund what money he had
expended. He was vehement in his opposition to this claim. He could
not bear to think of his brother having married a foreigner--a
papist, a fisherman's daughter; nay, of his having become a papist
himself. He was in despair at the thought of his ancestral property
going to the issue of such a marriage. He fought tooth and nail,
making enemies of his relations, and losing almost all his own
private property; for he would go on against the lawyer's advice,
long after every one was convinced except himself and his wife. At
last he was conquered. He gave up his living in gloomy despair. He
would have changed his name if he could, so desirous was he to
obliterate all tie between himself and the mongrel papist baronet and
his Italian mother, and all the succession of children and nurses who
came to take possession of the Hall soon after Mr. Hubert Galindo's
departure, stayed there one winter, and then flitted back to Naples
with gladness and delight. Mr. and Mrs. Hubert Galindo lived in
London. He had obtained a curacy somewhere in the city. They would
have been thankful now if Mr. Mark Gibson had renewed his offer. No
one could accuse him of mercenary motives if he had done so. Because
he did not come forward, as they wished, they brought his silence up
as a justification of what they had previously attributed to him. I
don't know what Miss Galindo thought herself; but Lady Ludlow has
told me how she shrank from hearing her parents abuse him. Lady
Ludlow supposed that he was aware that they were living in London.
His father must have known the fact, and it was curious if he had
never named it to his son. Besides, the name was very uncommon; and
it was unlikely that it should never come across him, in the
advertisements of charity sermons which the new and rather eloquent
curate of Saint Mark's East was asked to preach. All this time Lady
Ludlow never lost sight of them, for Miss Galindo's sake. And when
the father and mother died, it was my lady who upheld Miss Galindo in
her determination not to apply for any provision to her cousin, the
Italian baronet, but rather to live upon the hundred a-year which had
been settled on her mother and the children of his son Hubert's
marriage by the old grandfather, Sir Lawrence.
Mr. Mark Gibson had risen to some eminence as a barrister on the
Northern Circuit, but had died unmarried in the lifetime of his
father, a victim (so people said) to intemperance. Doctor Trevor,
the physician who had been called in to Mr. Gray and Harry Gregson,
had married a sister of his. And that was all my lady knew about the
Gibson family. But who was Bessy?
That mystery and secret came out, too, in process of time. Miss
Galindo had been to Warwick, some years before I arrived at Hanbury,
on some kind of business or shopping, which can only be transacted in
a county town. There was an old Westmoreland connection between her
and Mrs. Trevor, though I believe the latter was too young to have
been made aware of her brother's offer to Miss Galindo at the time
when it took place; and such affairs, if they are unsuccessful, are
seldom spoken about in the gentleman's family afterwards. But the
Gibsons and Galindos had been county neighbours too long for the
connection not to be kept up between two members settled far away
from their early homes. Miss Galindo always desired her parcels to
be sent to Dr. Trevor's, when she went to Warwick for shopping
purchases. If she were going any journey, and the coach did not come
through Warwick as soon as she arrived (in my lady's coach or
otherwise) from Hanbury, she went to Doctor Trevor's to wait. She
was as much expected to sit down to the household meals as if she had
been one of the family: and in after-years it was Mrs. Trevor who
managed her repository business for her.
So, on the day I spoke of, she had gone to Doctor Trevor's to rest,
and possibly to dine. The post in those times, came in at all hours
of the morning: and Doctor Trevor's letters had not arrived until
after his departure on his morning round. Miss Galindo was sitting
down to dinner with Mrs. Trevor and her seven children, when the
Doctor came in. He was flurried and uncomfortable, and hurried the
children away as soon as he decently could. Then (rather feeling
Miss Galindo's presence an advantage, both as a present restraint on
the violence of his wife's grief, and as a consoler when he was
absent on his afternoon round), he told Mrs. Trevor of her brother's
death. He had been taken ill on circuit, and had hurried back to his
chambers in London only to die. She cried terribly; but Doctor
Trevor said afterwards, he never noticed that Miss Galindo cared much
about it one way or another. She helped him to soothe his wife,
promised to stay with her all the afternoon instead of returning to
Hanbury, and afterwards offered to remain with her while the Doctor
went to attend the funeral. When they heard of the old love-story
between the dead man and Miss Galindo,--brought up by mutual friends
in Westmoreland, in the review which we are all inclined to take of
the events of a man's life when he comes to die,--they tried to
remember Miss Galindo's speeches and ways of going on during this
visit. She was a little pale, a little silent; her eyes were
sometimes swollen, and her nose red; but she was at an age when such
appearances are generally attributed to a bad cold in the head,
rather than to any more sentimental reason. They felt towards her as
towards an old friend, a kindly, useful, eccentric old maid. She did
not expect more, or wish them to remember that she might once have
had other hopes, and more youthful feelings. Doctor Trevor thanked
her very warmly for staying with his wife, when he returned home from
London (where the funeral had taken place). He begged Miss Galindo
to stay with them, when the children were gone to bed, and she was
preparing to leave the husband and wife by themselves. He told her
and his wife many particulars--then paused--then went on--"And Mark
has left a child--a little girl -
"But he never was married!" exclaimed Mrs. Trevor.
"A little girl," continued her husband, "whose mother, I conclude, is
dead. At any rate, the child was in possession of his chambers; she
and an old nurse, who seemed to have the charge of everything, and
has cheated poor Mark, I should fancy, not a little."
"But the child!" asked Mrs. Trevor, still almost breathless with
astonishment. "How do you know it is his?"
"The nurse told me it was, with great appearance of indignation at my
doubting it. I asked the little thing her name, and all I could get
was 'Bessy!' and a cry of 'Me wants papa!' The nurse said the mother
was dead, and she knew no more about it than that Mr. Gibson had
engaged her to take care of the little girl, calling it his child.
One or two of his lawyer friends, whom I met with at the funeral,
told me they were aware of the existence of the child."
"What is to be done with her?" asked Mrs. Gibson.
"Nay, I don't know," replied he. "Mark has hardly left assets enough
to pay his debts, and your father is not inclined to come forward."
That night, as Doctor Trevor sat in his study, after his wife had
gone to bed, Miss Galindo knocked at his door. She and he had a long
conversation. The result was that he accompanied Miss Galindo up to
town the next day; that they took possession of the little Bessy, and
she was brought down, and placed at nurse at a farm in the country
near Warwick, Miss Galindo undertaking to pay one-half of the
expense, and to furnish her with clothes, and Dr. Trevor undertaking
that the remaining half should be furnished by the Gibson family, or
by himself in their default.
Miss Galindo was not fond of children; and I dare say she dreaded
taking this child to live with her for more reasons than one. My
Lady Ludlow could not endure any mention of illegitimate children.
It was a principle of hers that society ought to ignore them. And I
believe Miss Galindo had always agreed with her until now, when the
thing came home to her womanly heart. Still she shrank from having
this child of some strange woman under her roof. She went over to
see it from time to time; she worked at its clothes long after every
one thought she was in bed; and, when the time came for Bessy to be
sent to school, Miss Galindo laboured away more diligently than ever,
in order to pay the increased expense. For the Gibson family had, at
first, paid their part of the compact, but with unwillingness and
grudging hearts; then they had left it off altogether, and it fell
hard on Dr. Trevor with his twelve children; and, latterly, Miss
Galindo had taken upon herself almost all the burden. One can hardly
live and labour, and plan and make sacrifices, for any human
creature, without learning to love it. And Bessy loved Miss Galindo,
too, for all the poor girl's scanty pleasures came from her, and Miss
Galindo had always a kind word, and, latterly, many a kind caress,
for Mark Gibson's child; whereas, if she went to Dr. Trevor's for her
holiday, she was overlooked and neglected in that bustling family,
who seemed to think that if she had comfortable board and lodging
under their roof, it was enough.
I am sure, now, that Miss Galindo had often longed to have Bessy to
live with her; but, as long as she could pay for her being at school,
she did not like to take so bold a step as bringing her home, knowing
what the effect of the consequent explanation would be on my lady.
And as the girl was now more than seventeen, and past the age when
young ladies are usually kept at school, and as there was no great
demand for governesses in those days, and as Bessy had never been
taught any trade by which to earn her own living, why I don't exactly
see what could have been done but for Miss Galindo to bring her to
her own home in Hanbury. For, although the child had grown up
lately, in a kind of unexpected manner, into a young woman, Miss
Galindo might have kept her at school for a year longer, if she could
have afforded it; but this was impossible when she became Mr.
Horner's clerk, and relinquished all the payment of her repository
work; and perhaps, after all, she was not sorry to be compelled to
take the step she was longing for. At any rate, Bessy came to live
with Miss Galindo, in a very few weeks from the time when Captain
James set Miss Galindo free to superintend her own domestic economy
again.
For a long time, I knew nothing about this new inhabitant of Hanbury.
My lady never mentioned her in any way. This was in accordance with
Lady Ludlow's well-known principles. She neither saw nor heard, nor
was in any way cognisant of the existence of those who had no legal
right to exist at all. If Miss Galindo had hoped to have an
exception made in Bessy's favour, she was mistaken. My lady sent a
note inviting Miss Galindo herself to tea one evening, about a month
after Bessy came; but Miss Galindo "had a cold and could not come."
The next time she was invited, she "had an engagement at home"--a
step nearer to the absolute truth. And the third time, she "had a
young friend staying with her whom she was unable to leave." My lady
accepted every excuse as bona fide, and took no further notice. I
missed Miss Galindo very much; we all did; for, in the days when she
was clerk, she was sure to come in and find the opportunity of saying
something amusing to some of us before she went away. And I, as an
invalid, or perhaps from natural tendency, was particularly fond of
little bits of village gossip. There was no Mr. Horner--he even had
come in, now and then, with formal, stately pieces of intelligence--
and there was no Miss Galindo in these days. I missed her much. And
so did my lady, I am sure. Behind all her quiet, sedate manner, I am
certain her heart ached sometimes for a few words from Miss Galindo,
who seemed to have absented herself altogether from the Hall now
Bessy was come.
Captain James might be very sensible, and all that; but not even my
lady could call him a substitute for the old familiar friends. He
was a thorough sailor, as sailors were in those days--swore a good
deal, drank a good deal (without its ever affecting him in the
least), and was very prompt and kind-hearted in all his actions; but
he was not accustomed to women, as my lady once said, and would judge
in all things for himself. My lady had expected, I think, to find
some one who would take his notions on the management of her estate
from her ladyship's own self; but he spoke as if he were responsible
for the good management of the whole, and must, consequently, be
allowed full liberty of action. He had been too long in command over
men at sea to like to be directed by a woman in anything he
undertook, even though that woman was my lady. I suppose this was
the common-sense my lady spoke of; but when common-sense goes against
us, I don't think we value it quite so much as we ought to do.
Lady Ludlow was proud of her personal superintendence of her own
estate. She liked to tell us how her father used to take her with
him in his rides, and bid her observe this and that, and on no
account to allow such and such things to be done. But I have heard
that the first time she told all this to Captain James, he told her
point-blank that he had heard from Mr. Smithson that the farms were
much neglected and the rents sadly behind-hand, and that he meant to
set to in good earnest and study agriculture, and see how he could
remedy the state of things. My lady would, I am sure, be greatly
surprised, but what could she do? Here was the very man she had
chosen herself, setting to with all his energy to conquer the defect
of ignorance, which was all that those who had presumed to offer her
ladyship advice had ever had to say against him. Captain James read
Arthur Young's "Tours" in all his spare time, as long as he was an
invalid; and shook his head at my lady's accounts as to how the land
had been cropped or left fallow from time immemorial. Then he set
to, and tried too many new experiments at once. My lady looked on in
dignified silence; but all the farmers and tenants were in an uproar,
and prophesied a hundred failures. Perhaps fifty did occur; they
were only half as many as Lady Ludlow had feared; but they were twice
as many, four, eight times as many as the captain had anticipated.
His openly-expressed disappointment made him popular again. The
rough country people could not have understood silent and dignified
regret at the failure of his plans, but they sympathized with a man
who swore at his ill success--sympathized, even while they chuckled
over his discomfiture. Mr. Brooke, the retired tradesman, did not
cease blaming him for not succeeding, and for swearing. "But what
could you expect from a sailor?" Mr. Brooke asked, even in my lady's
hearing; though he might have known Captain James was my lady's own
personal choice, from the old friendship Mr. Urian had always shown
for him. I think it was this speech of the Birmingham baker's that
made my lady determine to stand by Captain James, and encourage him
to try again. For she would not allow that her choice had been an
unwise one, at the bidding (as it were) of a dissenting tradesman;
the only person in the neighbourhood, too, who had flaunted about in
coloured clothes, when all the world was in mourning for my lady's
only son.
Captain James would have thrown the agency up at once, if my lady had
not felt herself bound to justify the wisdom of her choice, by urging
him to stay. He was much touched by her confidence in him, and swore
a great oath, that the next year he would make the land such as it
had never been before for produce. It was not my lady's way to
repeat anything she had heard, especially to another person's
disadvantage. So I don't think she ever told Captain James of Mr.
Brooke's speech about a sailor's being likely to mismanage the
property; and the captain was too anxious to succeed in this, the
second year of his trial, to be above going to the flourishing,
shrewd Mr. Brooke, and asking for his advice as to the best method of
working the estate. I dare say, if Miss Galindo had been as intimate
as formerly at the Hall, we should all of us have heard of this new
acquaintance of the agent's long before we did. As it was, I am sure
my lady never dreamed that the captain, who held opinions that were
even more Church and King than her own, could ever have made friends
with a Baptist baker from Birmingham, even to serve her ladyship's
own interests in the most loyal manner.
We heard of it first from Mr. Gray, who came now often to see my
lady, for neither he nor she could forget the solemn tie which the
fact of his being the person to acquaint her with my lord's death had
created between them. For true and holy words spoken at that time,
though having no reference to aught below the solemn subjects of life
and death, had made her withdraw her opposition to Mr. Gray's wish
about establishing a village school. She had sighed a little, it is
true, and was even yet more apprehensive than hopeful as to the
result; but almost as if as a memorial to my lord, she had allowed a
kind of rough school-house to be built on the green, just by the
church; and had gently used the power she undoubtedly had, in
expressing her strong wish that the boys might only be taught to read
and write, and the first four rules of arithmetic; while the girls
were only to learn to read, and to add up in their heads, and the
rest of the time to work at mending their own clothes, knitting
stockings and spinning. My lady presented the school with more
spinning-wheels than there were girls, and requested that there might
be a rule that they should have spun so many hanks of flax, and
knitted so many pairs of stockings, before they ever were taught to
read at all. After all, it was but making the best of a bad job with
my poor lady--but life was not what it had been to her. I remember
well the day that Mr. Gray pulled some delicately fine yarn (and I
was a good judge of those things) out of his pocket, and laid it and
a capital pair of knitted stockings before my lady, as the first-
fruits, so to say, of his school. I recollect seeing her put on her
spectacles, and carefully examine both productions. Then she passed
them to me.
"This is well, Mr. Gray. I am much pleased. You are fortunate in
your schoolmistress. She has had both proper knowledge of womanly
things and much patience. Who is she? One out of our village?"
"My lady," said Mr. Gray, stammering and colouring in his old
fashion, "Miss Bessy is so very kind as to teach all those sorts of
things--Miss Bessy, and Miss Galindo, sometimes."
My lady looked at him over her spectacles: but she only repeated the
words "Miss Bessy," and paused, as if trying to remember who such a
person could be; and he, if he had then intended to say more, was
quelled by her manner, and dropped the subject. He went on to say,
that he had thought it is duty to decline the subscription to his
school offered by Mr. Brooke, because he was a Dissenter; that he
(Mr. Gray) feared that Captain James, through whom Mr. Brooke's offer
of money had been made, was offended at his refusing to accept it
from a man who held heterodox opinions; nay, whom Mr. Gray suspected
of being infected by Dodwell's heresy.
"I think there must be some mistake," said my lady, "or I have
misunderstood you. Captain James would never be sufficiently with a
schismatic to be employed by that man Brooke in distributing his
charities. I should have doubted, until now, if Captain James knew
him."
"Indeed, my lady, he not only knows him, but is intimate with him, I
regret to say. I have repeatedly seen the captain and Mr. Brooke
walking together; going through the fields together; and people do
say--"
My lady looked up in interrogation at Mr. Gray's pause.
"I disapprove of gossip, and it may be untrue; but people do say that
Captain James is very attentive to Miss Brooke."
"Impossible!" said my lady, indignantly. "Captain James is a loyal
and religious man. I beg your pardon Mr. Gray, but it is
impossible." _
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