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betrayed it. ‘You don’t ask that right—as if you thought it im-
portant. You’re changed—you’re thinking of other things.’
‘Tell me what you mean, and I’ll think of that.’
‘Will you really think of it? That’s what I wish to be sure
of.’
‘I’ve not much control of my thoughts, but I’ll do my
best,’ said Isabel. Henrietta gazed at her, in silence, for a pe-
riod which tried Isabel’s patience, so that our heroine added
at last: ‘Do you mean that you’re going to be married?’
‘Not till I’ve seen Europe!’ said Miss Stackpole. ‘What
are you laughing at?’ she went on. ‘What I mean is that Mr.
Goodwood came out in the steamer with me.’
‘Ah!’ Isabel responded.
‘You say that right. I had a good deal of talk with him; he
has come after you.’
‘Did he tell you so?’
‘No, he told me nothing; that’s how I knew it,’ said Hen-
rietta cleverly. ‘He said very little about you, but I spoke of
you a good deal.’
Isabel waited. At the mention of Mr. Goodwood’s name
she had turned a little pale. ‘I’m very sorry you did that,’ she
observed at last.
‘It was a pleasure to me, and I liked the way he listened.
I could have talked a long time to such a listener; he was so
quiet, so intense; he drank it all in.’
‘What did you say about me?’ Isabel asked.
‘I said you were on the whole the finest creature I know.’
‘I’m very sorry for that. He thinks too well of me already;
he oughtn’t to be encouraged.’

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