presently added, "that when he comes you'd tell him first of my
engagement."

"Of course I'll mention it," said Mrs. Touchett. "I shall say
nothing more to you about it, but I give you notice I shall talk
to others."

"That's as you please. I only meant that it's rather better the
announcement should come from you than from me."

"I quite agree with you; it's much more proper!" And on this the
aunt and the niece went to breakfast, where Mrs. Touchett, as good
as her word, made no allusion to Gilbert Osmond. After an interval
of silence, however, she asked her companion from whom she had
received a visit an hour before.

"From an old friend--an American gentleman," Isabel said with a
colour in her cheek.

"An American gentleman of course. It's only an American gentleman
who calls at ten o'clock in the morning."

"It was half-past ten; he was in a great hurry; he goes away this
evening."

"Couldn't he have come yesterday, at the usual time?"

"He only arrived last night."

"He spends but twenty-four hours in Florence?" Mrs. Touchett