’So did Arabella, ‘my dear before you thought of such things.’

’I dare say that may be true, mamma; but that is not my fault.  He came here among us on such sweetly intimate terms that the feeling grew up with me before I knew what it meant.  As to any idea of cutting out Arabella, my conscience is quite clear.  If I thought there had been anything really between them.  I would have gone anywhere, to the top of a mountain, rather than rob my sister of a heart that belonged to her.’

‘He has been so slow about it,’ said Mrs French.

‘I don’t know about that,’ said Camilla.  ’Gentlemen have to be slow, I suppose, when they think of their incomes.  He only got St. Peter’s-cum-Pumpkin three years ago, and didn’t know for the first year whether he could hold that and the minor canonry together.  Of course a gentleman has to think of these things before he comes forward.’

‘My dear, he has been very backward.’

’If I’m to be Mrs Gibson, mamma, I beg that I mayn’t hear anything said against him.  Then there came all this about that young woman; and when I saw that Arabella took on so, which I must say was very absurd, I’m sure I put myself out of the way entirely.  If I’d buried myself under the ground I couldn’t have done it more.  And it’s my belief that what I’ve said, all for Arabella’s sake, has put the old woman into such a rage that it has made a quarrel between him and the niece; otherwise that wouldn’t be off.  I don’t believe a word of her refusing him, and never shall.  Is it in the course of things, mamma?’ Mrs French shook her head.  ’Of course not.  Then when you question him very properly he says that he’s devoted to poor me.  If I was to refuse him, he wouldn’t put up with Bella.’

‘I suppose not,’ said Mrs French.

’He hates Bella.  I’ve known it all along, though I wouldn’t say so.  If I were to sacrifice myself ever so it wouldn’t be of any good and I shan’t do it.’  In this way the matter was arranged.

At the end of the fortnight, however, Mr Gibson did not come, nor at the end of three weeks.  Inquiries had of course been made, and it was ascertained that he had gone into Cornwall for a parson’s holiday of thirteen days.  That might be all very well.  A man might want the recruiting vigour of some change of air after such scenes as those Mr Gibson had gone through with the Stanburys, and before his proposed encounter with new perils.  And he was a man so tied by the leg that his escape could not be for any long time.  He was back on the appointed Sunday, and on the Wednesday Mrs French, under Camilla’s instruction, wrote to him a pretty little note.  He replied that he would be with her on the Saturday.  It would then be nearly four weeks after the great day with Miss Stanbury, but no one would be inclined to quarrel with so short a delay as that.  Arabella in the meantime had become fidgety and unhappy.  She seemed to understand that something was expected,