But perhaps the loudest complaint came from the side of Babington; and here two sets of enemies joined their forces together who were thoroughly hostile to each other.  Mrs. Babington declared loudly that old Bolton had been an errand-boy in his youth, and that his father had been a porter and his mother a washerwoman.  This could do no real harm, as Caldigate would not have been deterred by any such rumours, even had they been true; but they tended to show animosity, and enabled Mrs. Nicholas to find out the cause of the Babington opposition.  When she learned that John Caldigate had been engaged to his cousin Julia, of course she made the most of it; and so did Mrs. Bolton.  And in this way it came to be reported not only that the young man had been engaged to Miss Babington before he went to Australia,—­but also that he had renewed his engagement since his return.  ‘You do not love her, do you?’ Hester asked him.  Then he told her the whole story, as nearly as he could tell it with some respect for his cousin, laughing the while at his aunt’s solicitude, and saying, perhaps something not quite respectful as to Julia’s red cheeks and green hat, all of which certainly had not the effect of hardening Hester’s heart against him.  ‘The poor young lady can’t help it if her feet are big,’ said Hester, who was quite alive to the grace of a well-made pair of boots, although she had been taught to eschew braided hair and pearls and gold.

Mrs. Babington, however, pushed her remonstrances so far that she boldly declared that the man was engaged to her daughter, and wrote to him more than once declaring that it was so.  She wrote, indeed, very often, sometimes abusing him for his perfidy, and then, again, imploring him to return to them, and not to defile the true old English blood of the Caldigates with the suds of a washerwoman and the swept-up refuse of a porter’s shovel.  She became quite eloquent in her denunciation, but always saying that if he would only come back to Babington all would be forgiven him.  But in these days he made no visits to Babington.

Then there came a plaintive little note from Mrs. Shand.  Of course they wished him joy if it were true.  But could it be true?  Men were very fickle, certainly; but this change seemed to have been very, very sudden!  And there was a word or two, prettily written in another hand, on a small slip of paper—­’Perhaps you had better send back the book’; and Caldigate, as he read it, thought that he could discern the almost-obliterated smudge of a wiped-up tear.  He wrote a cheerful letter to Mrs. Shand, in which he told her that though he had not been absolutely engaged to marry Hester Bolton before he started for Australia,—­and consequently before he had ever been at Pollington,—­yet his mind had been quite made up to do so; and that therefore he regarded himself as being abnormally constant rather than fickle.  ’And tell your daughter, with my kindest regards,’ he added, ’that I hope I may be allowed to keep the book.’