it, Mrs. Harcourt, you don't strike me as being quite suitably affected; and I'm sure I've come as fast as my legs would carry me all the way from my cottage this morning, as soon as ever I'd seen the dinner on a safe track, that I might be the first to tell you, the very first, you know, because I always say there's no one so pleased as Mrs. Harcourt, in a general way, to rejoice with those that do rejoice.' "When I know what I'm to rejoice about,” said Mrs. Harcourt, leaning back in her chair, with a quiet smile. "Deary me, now! well, to be sure, how stupid! But really I have such a way of forgetting my antecedents. It was just the same when I began writing my book on the management of children; and, by the bye, I'm afraid I shant't get it finished in time for the publishing season now. I dropped straight down into the middle of the end chapter, and worked backwards way until I got halfway through. I mean, you know, my dear friend, that a change has taken place; or rather my maiden freedom is on the point of capitulating in favour of or at least, you understand, an opportunity has been afforded-but the fact is, Mrs. Harcourt, I am going to be married." "Miss Gabbatis!" "Yes, I really am," and Miss Gabbatis reached over her shoulder in pursuit of her bonnet strings which had gone in that direction, and tucked them inside her shawl. "Things do turn out so very remarkably, as I said before, and there's no such thing as saying what's going to be laid out for you. I'm sure goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life; and I'm going to live in the prettiest little house you can imagine, with two sitting-rooms to the front and a kitchen back, with such a delightful oven and boiler, and four sleeping-rooms above, besides out-places, and a small piece of ground where I can cultivate a few turnips on my own account-you know I'm so fond of turnips. I do assure you, Mrs. Harcourt, I feel quite drawn out in thankfulness." Mrs. Harcourt's face brightened, as it always did for any happiness that came to others. Miss Gabbatis accepted the smile in place of words, and continued, "Yes, I was sure you would receive my prospects with open arms, or I shouldn't have felt called upon to mention them to you. It's a pleasant look-out, it really is, and such a delightful little family to go into." "Then the gentleman is a widower?" 66 Exactly so. I ought to have mentioned that before, but really I was in such a state of pleasing perturbation that I forgot to state the preliminary facts of the case. Yes, a widower. I have always turned my attention to a widower as being the most likely opening after I entered on my fifty-fifth year. And then, you know, my dear Mrs. Harcourt- for I've turned it over in my own mind a good deal of late a man that's been married once knows what to expect, and can make allowances for little shortcomings in his shirt buttons and cookery; whereas a man who enters the matrimonial state for the first time in his life thinks he's going right away into Paradise without any more to do, and you're always on the fidget to keep him from finding out his mistake, and yet you know he must find it out some time or other. Now, you see, a widower has got over all that sort of thing, and really knows what to expect, and doesn't look out for Paradise when he goes to housekeeping a second time; and makes up his mind to a few little hitches and deficiencies in domestic arrangements now and then. So that, on the whole, Mrs. Harcourt, I think I've done the right thing in the right place by taking poor Mr. Smithson and his family under my care." Mabel "Ah! Mr. Smithson, that gentleman who came to Braeton nearly four years since. Don't you remember, Miss Gabbatis, telling us he was likely to come, one evening a long time ago?" "That night, you mean, soon after Miss dear me, how stupid! I mean Mrs. came home from Scarbro'. To think that she should have been married this three years, and I haven't learned to give her her proper title yet! And we were talking, if you remember, about the overplus of female population in Braeton, a very serious subject too; but things do turn out so remarkably. I'm sure I shall never be surprised at anything again as long as I live. To think, you know, that any one should take the trouble to come and pick me out, after I'd lain so long at the bottom of the basket that all the bloom had got rubbed off me in a manner, and nobody would have supposed there'd been a bit of taste left in me worth speaking of!—it's providential, it really is. But then, Mrs. Harcourt, I always said the fruit that had lain longest in the basketthe old residents, you understand-should have the first chance, especially with a widower; don't you think so, now?" Mrs. Harcourt did think so, and expressed an opinion to that effect; whereupon Miss Gabbatis felt drawn out to offer a little more circumstantial information as to the origin and progress of the change in her prospects. "You see, Mrs. Harcourt, having as I said lain so long at the bottom of the basket, I had quite made up my mind to stay there altogether; and lately, when anybody came my way who was likely to be wanting a little fruit— in a figurative sense, you know I haven't thought it worth while to come forward and |
