but Colonel Wallis has a very pretty silly wife, to whom he tells things which he had better not, and he repeats it all to her.  She in the overflowing spirits of her recovery, repeats it all to her nurse; and the nurse knowing my acquaintance with you, very naturally brings it all to me.  On Monday evening, my good friend Mrs Rooke let me thus much into the secrets of Marlborough Buildings.  When I talked of a whole history, therefore, you see I was not romancing so much as you supposed.”

“My dear Mrs Smith, your authority is deficient.  This will not do.  Mr Elliot’s having any views on me will not in the least account for the efforts he made towards a reconciliation with my father.  That was all prior to my coming to Bath.  I found them on the most friendly terms when I arrived.”

“I know you did; I know it all perfectly, but—­”

“Indeed, Mrs Smith, we must not expect to get real information in such a line.  Facts or opinions which are to pass through the hands of so many, to be misconceived by folly in one, and ignorance in another, can hardly have much truth left.”

“Only give me a hearing.  You will soon be able to judge of the general credit due, by listening to some particulars which you can yourself immediately contradict or confirm.  Nobody supposes that you were his first inducement.  He had seen you indeed, before he came to Bath, and admired you, but without knowing it to be you.  So says my historian, at least.  Is this true?  Did he see you last summer or autumn, `somewhere down in the west,’ to use her own words, without knowing it to be you?”

“He certainly did.  So far it is very true.  At Lyme.  I happened to be at Lyme.”

“Well,” continued Mrs Smith, triumphantly, “grant my friend the credit due to the establishment of the first point asserted.  He saw you then at Lyme, and liked you so well as to be exceedingly pleased to meet with you again in Camden Place, as Miss Anne Elliot, and from that moment, I have no doubt, had a double motive in his visits there.  But there was another, and an earlier, which I will now explain.  If there is anything in my story which you know to be either false or improbable, stop me.  My account states, that your sister’s friend, the lady now staying with you, whom I have heard you mention, came to Bath with Miss Elliot and Sir Walter as long ago as September (in short when they first came themselves), and has been staying there ever since; that she is a clever, insinuating, handsome woman, poor and plausible, and altogether such in situation and manner, as to give a general idea, among Sir Walter’s acquaintance, of her meaning to be Lady Elliot, and as general a surprise that Miss Elliot should be apparently, blind to the danger.”

Here Mrs Smith paused a moment; but Anne had not a word to say, and she continued—­