young creature; afraid, even, that she might be tempted, in some unguarded moment, to gossip with them, confide her unhappiness to them, in the blind longing to open her heart to some human being; for there were no resident gentry of her own rank in the neighbourhood.  She was too high-minded to complain much to Clara; and her sister Valencia was the very last person to whom she would confess that her run-away-match had not been altogether successful.  So she lived alone and friendless, shrinking into herself more and more, while the vulgar women round mistook her honour for pride, and revenged themselves accordingly.  She was an uninteresting fine lady, proud and cross, and Elsley was a martyr.  “So handsome and agreeable as he was—­(and to do him justice, he was the former, and he could be the latter when he chose)—­to be tied to that unsociable, stuck-up woman;” and so forth.

All which Tom had heard, and formed his own opinion thereof; which was,—­

“All very fine:  but I flatter myself I know a little what women are made of; and this I know, that where man and wife quarrel, even if she ends the battle, it is he who has begun it.  I never saw a case yet where the man was not the most in fault; and I’ll lay my life John Briggs has led her a pretty life:  what else could one expect of him?”

However, he held his tongue, and kept his eyes open withal whenever he went up to Penalva Court, which he had to do very often; for though he had cured the children of their ailments, yet Mrs. Vavasour was perpetually, more or less, unwell, and he could not cure her.  Her low spirits, headaches, general want of tone and vitality, puzzled him at first; and would have puzzled him longer, had he not settled with himself that their cause was to be sought in the mind, and not in the body; and at last, gaining courage from certainty, he had hinted as much to Miss Clara the night before, when she came down (as she was very fond of doing) to have a gossip with him in his shop, under the pretence of fetching medicine.

“I don’t think I shall send Mrs. Vavasour any more, Miss Clara.  There is no use running up a long bill when I do no good; and, what is more, suspect that I can do none, poor lady.”  And he gave the girl a look which seemed to say, “You had better tell me the truth; for I know everything already.”

To which Clara answered by trying to find out how much he did know:  but Tom was a cunninger diplomatist than she; and in ten minutes, after having given solemn promises of secresy, and having, by strong expressions of contempt for Mrs. Heale and the village gossips, made Clara understand that he did not at all take their view of the case, he had poured out to him across the counter all Clara’s long-pent indignation and contempt.

“I never said a word of this to a living soul, sir; I was too proud, for my mistress’s sake, to let vulgar people know what we suffered.  We don’t want any of their pity indeed; but you, sir, who have the feelings of a gentleman, and know what the world is, like ourselves—­”