there was a young man from New York last winter who seemed crazy about
her. Florrie, don't you think George Fowler was just crazy about
Gabriella?"

"I'm sure I don't know, mother. He paid her a great deal of attention,
but you never can tell about men."

"Julia Caperton told me, and, of course, she's very intimate with
George's sister, that he went back to New York because he heard that
Gabriella was engaged to Arthur. Florrie, do you suppose she is really
engaged to Arthur?"

Thus appealed to, Florrie removed the Leghorn hat from her head, and
answered abstractedly: "Jane thought so, but if she is engaged, I don't
see why she should have started to work. I know Arthur would hate it."

"But isn't he too poor to marry?" inquired Mrs. Spencer, whose curiosity
was as robust as her constitution. "Haven't you always understood that
the Peytons were poor, Miss Lancaster, in spite of the lovely house they
live in?"

Her large, good-humoured face, which had once been as delicate as a
flower, but was now growing puffed and mottled under a plentiful layer
of rice powder, became almost violently animated, while she adjusted her
belt with a single effective jerk of her waist. Though Bessie Spencer
was admitted to have one of the kindest hearts in the world, she was
chiefly remarkable for her unhappy faculty of saying the wrong thing at
the wrong time. An inveterate, though benevolent, gossip, she would
babble on for hours, reciting the private affairs of her relatives, her
friends, and her neighbours. Everybody feared her, and yet everybody was