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Updated: May 28, 2025
And yet he could meet Arabella on the sly in the lanes, and send notes to her by the green-grocer's boy! Poor Mr. Gibson indeed! Let her once get him well over the 29th of April, and the people of Exeter might talk about poor Mr. Gibson if they pleased. And Bella's conduct was more wonderful almost than that of Mr. Gibson.
'It doesn't matter to me! she declared. 'It was father's fad, and so I sat. He promised me, if I didn't like it, he'd put it in his own den, where my friends couldn't see it. So I really don't care a straw! 'Bella! don't be rude! said her mother, severely. She rose and came to look at the picture. Bella's colour took a still sharper accent; her chest rose and fell; she fidgeted an angry foot.
But a fresh idea occurred to him, and, going back to the table, he took his untouched cup, carried it carefully to the open window, and emptied it upon a flower-bed; then, returning the cup, he rang the bell, waited till he heard Bella's step in the hall, and then began to parade in a sort of "sentry go" up and down in front of the partly open bookcase, while the maid, after a glance at the boy's averted countenance and frowning face, not daring to catch his eye for fear of bursting out into a fresh fit of laughter, began to clear the table.
Both Bella's and Martha's eyes were luminous-moist, as the old retainer repeated the lomi and the mele to Martha, and as they talked with her in the ancient tongue and asked the immemorial questions about her health and age and great-great-grandchildren she who had lomied them as babies in the great house at Kilohana, as her ancestresses had lomied their ancestresses back through the unnumbered generations.
"When did you meet one another, and where was it, Miss Parkinson?" inquired Matilda, rather to include herself in the conversation than from any devouring curiosity. Leander struck in hoarsely. "We met," he explained, "some time since, quite casual." Bella's eyes lit up with triumphant malice. "What!" she said, "do you call yesterday week such a long while? What a compliment that is, though!
"I wish mother was here," she cried, "it's all so different now, and so miserable!" "I know, I know; but, child, you must try and remember how it would have grieved your poor mother, if she could know that her children's home was unhappy, and then tell yourself that it is going to be your work to make it different to make it what she would wish it to be." Bella's tears gradually ceased.
After all, she had told them they would get no food until the washing was all done, and no one could have guessed that she would have changed her mind within so short a time; and there was no real harm in Bella's putting them in the way of getting something to eat when they were so very hungry.
The Secretary with a smile held up his hand, so plainly interposing 'not for better taste', that Bella's colour deepened over the little piece of coquetry she was checked in. 'And so, resumed the Secretary, 'if you would speak with her alone before we go away from here, I feel quite sure that a natural and easy confidence would arise between you.
She was sitting on the blue couch near the widow, and, while talking, amused herself with repairing the disorder of the dress of a Japanese princess, one of Bella's dolls, which she had left on a chair, and which Bettina had mechanically taken up. Why had the fancy come to Miss Percival to talk to him of those two young girls whom he might have married?
'You remember what I said to you long since? My mind is made up practically made up. I shall devote myself to Bella's education, in the hope you understand me? Impossible to have found a girl who suited better with my aspirations. She has known the hardships of poverty, poor thing, and that will keep her for ever in sympathy with the downtrodden classes.
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