"May God do so to
me, and more also, if to the end I do not treat her not only with all
affection, but also with all delicacy of observance." It was thus that
he spoke to himself of her, as he walked away from the door of Mrs.
Mountjoy's house in Cheltenham.
From thence he went back to Buston, and entered his father's house with
all that halo of happiness shining round his heart. He did not say much
about it, but his mother and his sisters felt that he was altered; and
he understood their feelings when his mother said to him, after a day or
two, that "it was a great shame" that they none of them knew his
Florence.
"But you will have to know her--well."
"That's of course; but it's a thousand pities that we should not be able
to talk of her to you as one whom we know already." Then he felt that
they had, among them all, acknowledged her to be such as she was.
There came to the rectory some tidings of the meeting which had taken
place at the Hall between his uncle and Miss Thoroughbung. It was Joe
who brought to them the first account; and then farther particulars
leaked out among the servants of the two houses. Matthew was very
discreet; but even Matthew must have spoken a word or two. In the first
place there came the news that Mr.
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