with all an aunt’s energy.  When told by Miss Petrie that old Lord Peterborough was a tinkling cymbal she snapped angrily at her gifted countrywoman.  But she was too honest a woman, and too conscious also of her niece’s strength, to say a word to urge her on.  Mr Spalding as an American minister, with full powers at the court of a European sovereign, felt that he had full as much to give as to receive; but he was well inclined to do both.  He would have been much pleased to talk about his nephew Lord Peterborough, and he loved his niece dearly.  But by the middle of February he was beginning to think that the matter had been long enough in training.  If the Honourable Glascock meant anything, why did he not speak out his mind plainly?  The American Minister in such matters was accustomed to fewer ambages than were common in the circles among which Mr Glascock had lived.

In the meantime Caroline Spalding was suffering.  She had allowed herself to think that Mr Glascock intended to propose to her, and had acknowledged to herself that were he to do so she would certainly accept him.  All that she had seen of him, since the day on which he had been courteous to her about the seat in the diligence, had been pleasant to her.  She had felt the charm of his manner, his education, and his gentleness; and had told herself that with all her love for her own country, she would willingly become an Englishwoman for the sake of being that man’s wife.  But nevertheless the warnings of her great friend, the poetess, had not been thrown away upon her.  She would put away from herself as far as she could any desire to become Lady Peterborough.  There should be no bias in the man’s favour on that score.  The tinkling cymbal and the sounding brass should be nothing to her.  But yet—­yet what a chance was there here for her?  ’They are dishonest, and rotten at the core,’ said Miss Petrie, trying to make her friend understand that a free American should under no circumstances place trust in an English aristocrat.  ’Their country, Carry, is a game played out, while we are still breasting the hill with our young lungs full of air.’  Carry Spalding was proud of her intimacy with the Republican Browning; but nevertheless she liked Mr Glascock; and when Mr Glascock had been ten days in Florence, on his third visit to the city, and had been four or five times at the embassy without expressing his intentions in the proper form, Carry Spalding began to think that she had better save herself from a heartbreak while salvation might be within her reach.  She perceived that her uncle was gloomy and almost angry when he spoke of Mr Glascock, and that her aunt was fretful with disappointment.  The Republican Browning had uttered almost a note of triumph; and had it not been that Olivia persisted, Carry Spalding would have consented to go away with Miss Petrie to Rome.  ‘The old stones are rotten too,’ said the poetess; ’but their dust tells no lies.’  That well known piece of hers ’Ancient Marbles, while ye crumble,’ was written at this time, and contained an occult reference to Mr Glascock and her friend.