There was much to be discussed, and considerable difficulty in the discussion.  This was enhanced, too, by the feeling in the minds of all of them that Hugh and Sir Marmaduke would not meet again probably for many years.  Were they to part now on terms of close affection, or were they to part almost as strangers?  Had Lucy and Sophie not persistently remained up, Nora would have faced the difficulty, and taken the bull by the horns, and asked her father to sanction her engagement in the presence of her lover.  But she could not do it before so many persons, even though the persons were her own nearest relatives.  And then there arose another embarrassment.  Sir Marmaduke, who had taught himself to believe that Stanbury was so poor as hardly to have the price of a dinner in his pocket although, in fact, our friend Hugh was probably the richer man of the two, said something about defraying the cost of the journey.  ‘It is taken altogether on our behalf,’ said Sir Marmaduke.  Hugh became red in the face, looked angry, and muttered a word or two about Trevelyan being the oldest friend he had in the world ‘even if there were nothing else.’  Sir Marmaduke felt ashamed of himself without cause, indeed, for the offer was natural, said nothing further about it; but appeared to be more stiff and ungainly than ever.

The Bradshaw was had out and consulted, and nearly half an hour was spent in poring over that wondrous volume.  It is the fashion to abuse Bradshaw; we speak now especially of Bradshaw the Continental because all the minutest details of the autumn tour, just as the tourist thinks that it may be made, cannot be made patent to him at once without close research amidst crowded figures.  After much experience we make bold to say that Bradshaw knows more, and will divulge more in a quarter of an hour, of the properest mode of getting from any city in Europe to any other city more than fifty miles distant, than can be learned in that first city in a single morning with the aid of a courier, a carriage, a pair of horses, and all the temper that any ordinary tourist possesses.  The Bradshaw was had out, and it was at last discovered that nothing could be gained in the journey from London to Siena by starting in the morning.  Intending as he did to travel through without sleeping on the road, Stanbury could not do better than leave London by the night mail train, and this he determined to do.  But when that was arranged, then came the nature of his commission.  What was he to do?  No commission could be given to him.  A telegram should be sent to Emily the next morning to say that he was coming; and then he would hurry on and take his orders from her.