“I don’t know.  I wish that I had none.”

“And, John;—­I can understand her feeling now; and, indeed, I thought all through that you were asking her too soon; but the time may yet come when she will think better of your wishes.”

“No, no; never.  I begin to know her now.”

“If you can be constant in your love you may win her yet.  Remember how young she is; and how young you both are.  Come again in two years’ time, and then, when you have won her, you shall tell me that I have been a good old woman to you both.”

“I shall never win her, Lady Julia.”  As he spoke these last words the tears were running down his cheeks, and he was weeping openly in presence of his companion.  It was well for him that she had come upon him in his sorrow.  When he once knew that she had seen his tears, he could pour out to her the whole story of his grief; and as he did so she led him back quietly to the house.

CHAPTER LV

Not Very Fie Fie after All

It will perhaps be remembered that terrible things had been foretold as about to happen between the Hartletop and Omnium families.  Lady Dumbello had smiled whenever Mr Plantagenet Palliser had spoken to her.  Mr Palliser had confessed to himself that politics were not enough for him, and that Love was necessary to make up the full complement of his happiness.  Lord Dumbello had frowned latterly when his eyes fell on the tall figure of the duke’s heir; and the duke himself,—­that potentate, generally so mighty in his silence,—­the duke himself had spoken.  Lady de Courcy and Lady Clandidlem were, both of them, absolutely certain that the thing had been fully arranged.  I am, therefore, perfectly justified in stating that the world was talking about the loves,—­the illicit loves,—­of Mr Palliser and Lady Dumbello.

And the talking of the world found its way down to that respectable country parsonage in which Lady Dumbello had been born, and from which she had been taken away to those noble halls which she now graced by her presence.  The talking of the world was heard at Plumstead Episcopi, where still lived Archdeacon Grantly, the lady’s father; and was heard also at the deanery of Barchester, where lived the lady’s aunt and grandfather.  By whose ill-mannered tongue the rumour was spread in these ecclesiastical regions it boots not now to tell.  But it may be remembered that Courcy Castle was not far from Barchester, and that Lady de Courcy was not given to hide her lights under a bushel.

It was a terrible rumour.  To what mother must not such a rumour respecting her daughter be very terrible?  In no mother’s ears could it have sounded more frightfully than it did in those of Mrs Grantly.  Lady Dumbello, the daughter, might be altogether worldly; but Mrs Grantly had never been more than half worldly.  In one moiety of her character, her habits, and her desires, she had been wedded to things good in themselves,—­to