She had become fully aware during that interview that her mother still entertained hopes, and almost suspected that Lady Rowley had known something of Mr Glascock’s residence in Florence.  She had seen that her mother had met Mr Glascock almost as though some such meeting had been expected, and had spoken to him almost as though she had expected to have to speak to him.  Would it not be better that she should at once make her mother understand that all this could be of no avail?  If she were to declare plainly that nothing could bring about such a marriage, would not her mother desist?  She almost made up her mind to do so; but as her mother said nothing to her before they started for Mr Spalding’s house, neither did she say anything to her mother.  She did not wish to have angry words if they could be avoided, and she felt that there might be anger and unpleasant words were she to insist upon her devotion to Hugh Stanbury while this rich prize was in sight.  If her mother should speak to her, then, indeed, she would declare her own settled purpose; but she would do nothing to accelerate the evil hour.

There were but few people in Mrs Spalding’s drawing-room when they were announced, and Mr Glascock was not among them.  Miss Wallachia Petrie was there, and in the confusion of the introduction was presumed by Lady Rowley to be one of the nieces introduced.  She had been distinctly told that Mr Glascock was to marry the eldest, and this lady was certainly older than the other two.  In this way Lady Rowley decided that Miss Wallachia Petrie was her daughter’s hated rival, and she certainly was much surprised at the gentleman’s taste.  But there is nothing nothing in the way of an absurd matrimonial engagement into which a man will not allow himself to be entrapped by pique.  Nora would have a great deal to answer for, Lady Rowley thought, if the unfortunate man should be driven by her cruelty to marry such a woman as this one now before her.

It happened that Lady Rowley soon found herself seated by Miss Petrie, and she at once commenced her questionings.  She intended to be very discreet, but the subject was too near her heart to allow her to be altogether silent.  ‘I believe you know Mr Glascock?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ said Wallachia, ‘I do know him.’  Now the peculiar nasal twang which our cousins over the water have learned to use, and which has grown out of a certain national instinct which coerces them to express themselves with self-assertion—­let the reader go into his closet and talk through his nose for awhile with steady attention to the effect which his own voice will have, and he will find that this theory is correct—­this intonation, which is so peculiar among intelligent Americans, had been adopted con amore, and, as it were, taken to her bosom by Miss Petrie.  Her ears had taught themselves to feel that there could be no vitality in speech without it, and that all utterance unsustained by such tone was effeminate, vapid, useless, unpersuasive, unmusical and English.  It was a complaint frequently made by her against her friends Caroline and Olivia that they debased their voices, and taught themselves the puling British mode of speech.  ’I do know the gentleman,’ said Wallachia, and Lady Rowley shuddered.  Could it be that such a woman as this was to reign over Monkhams, and become the future Lady Peterborough?