him to wish to tell us first himself?"

Her father could not say that it was not. But he could and did say, very
sceptically: "Stuff! Now, see here, Agatha: what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to see Mrs. March, and then--"

"You mustn't do anything of the kind, my dear," said her father, gently.
"You've no right to give yourself away to that romantic old goose." He
put up his hand to interrupt her protest. "This thing has got to be gone
to the bottom of. But you're not to do it. I will see March myself. We
must consider your dignity in this matter--and mine. And you may as well
understand that I'm not going to have any nonsense. It's got to be
managed so that it can't be supposed we're anxious about it, one way or
the other, or that he was authorized to write to you in this way--"

"No, no! He oughtn't to have done so. He was to blame. He couldn't have
written to you, though, papa--"

"Well, I don't know why. But that's no reason why we should let it be
understood that he has written to you. I will see March; and I will
manage to see his wife, too. I shall probably find them in the
reading-room at Pupp's, and--"

The Marches were in fact just coming in from their breakfast at the
Posthof, and he met them at the door of Pupp's, where they all sat down
on one of the iron settees of the piazza, and began to ask one another
questions of their minds about the pleasure of the day before, and to
beat about the bush where Burnamy lurked in their common consciousness.