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Updated: May 16, 2025
Caroline could not, at the first glance, recognise that Arabella Fossett, of whose handsome, if somewhat too strongly defined and sombre countenance, she had retained a faithful reminiscence.
But just as he was meditating the possibility of a compromise with old Fossett, by which he would agree to wait till the will was read for contingent advantages, provided Fossett, in his turn, would agree in the mean while to afford lodging and board, with a trifle for pocket-money, to Arabella and himself, in the Clapham villa, which, though not partial to rural scenery, Jasper preferred, on the whole, to a second floor in the City, old Fossett fell ill, took to his bed; was unable to attend to his business, some one else attended to it; and the consequence was, that the house stopped payment, and was discovered to have been insolvent for the last ten years.
But, after the most attentive study, Miss Fossett had inly decided that there was nothing to make out that, like many other very nice girls, Matilda Darrell was a harmless nullity, what you call "a Miss" white deal or willow, to which Miss Fossett had done all in the way of increasing its value as ornamental furniture, when she had veneered it over with rosewood or satinwood, enriched its edges with ormolu, and strewed its surface with nicknacks and albums.
"Love," retorted Susan Fossett, "doesn't transform an intelligent, educated woman into a person who writes a letter all in jerks, underlines every other word, spells antiquarian with an 'e, and Burcott's name, whom she has known for the last eight years, with only one 't. The woman has gone stark, staring mad!" "We must wait until we have seen him," was Peter's judicious view.
"I mean," explained the doctor, "dat he must be a man of character of brain. Id is de noble man dat is attracted by de noble woman." "By the chorus-girl more often," suggested Miss Fossett. "We must hope for the best," counselled Peter. "I cannot believe that a clever, capable woman like Mary Ramsbotham would make a fool of herself."
To her delighted surprise, Mr. Fossett, after some moralising, more on the uncertainty of life in general than her clandestine proceedings in particular, agreed to see Mr. Jasper Losely, and asked him down to dinner. What that fortune would be, Mr. Fossett declined even to hint. Jasper went away very much cooled. Still the engagement remained in force; the nuptials were tacitly deferred.
The girl was the same; it was only her body that had grown older. I could see his eyes fixed upon my arms and neck. I had got to grow old in time, brown skinned, and wrinkled. I thought of him, growing bald, fat " "If you had fallen in love with the right man," had said Susan Fossett, "those ideas would not have come to you." "I know," said Miss Ramsbotham.
"The marvel to me is that no man hitherto has ever had the sense to want her." "Oh, you men!" cried Miss Fossett. "A pretty face and an empty head is all you want." "Must they always go together?" laughed Mrs. Grindley junior, nee Helvetia Appleyard. "Exceptions prove the rule," grunted Miss Fossett. "What a happy saying that is," smiled Mrs. Grindley junior.
She was forced to dispose of her house; and at this time Mrs. Lyndsay, looking out for some first-rate superior governess for Matilda Darrell, was urged by all means to try and secure for that post Arabella Fossett.
I should have told you, by-the-by, that it was she who, being a woman, of course succeeded where I, being a man, despite incredible pains and trouble, signally failed, discovered Arabella Fossett, alias Crane, and obtained from her the documents which free your life forever from a haunting and torturing fear. I urged her to accompany me hither, and place the documents herself in your hand.
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