that he must write to a certain address to
announce the death of Lawrence Galindo.
For some time she feared lest English
barbarians might come down upon her,
making a claim upon the children. She hid
herself and them in the Abruzzi, living upon
the sale of what furniture and jewels Sir
Lawrence had died possessed of. When these
failed, she returned to Naples, which she had
not visited since her marriage. Her father
was dead; but her brother inherited some of
his keenness. He interested the priests, who
made inquiries and found that the Galindo
succession was worth securing to an heir of
the true faith. They stirred about it, obtained
advice at the English Embassy; and hence
that letter to the lawyers, calling upon Sir
Hubert to relinquish title and property, and
to refund what money he had expended. He
was vehement in his opposition to this claim.
He could not bear to think of his brother
having married a foreigner— a papist, a
fisherman's daughter; nay, of his having
become a papist himself. He was in despair
at the thought of his ancestral property
going to the issue of such a marriage. He
fought tooth and nail, making enemies of his
relations, and losing almost all his own
private property; for he would go on against
the lawyer's advice, long after every one was
convinced except himself and his wife. At
last he was conquered. He gave up his
living in gloomy despair. He would have
changed his name if he could, so desirous
was he to obliterate all tie between himself
and the mongrel papist baronet and his
Italian mother, and all the succession of
children and nurses who came to take
possession of the hall soon after Mr. Hubert
Galindo's departure, staid there one winter,
and then flitted back to Naples with
gladness and delight. Mr. and Mrs. Hubert
Galindo lived in London. He had obtained
a curacy somewhere in the city. They
would have been thankful now if Mr.
Mark Gibson had renewed his offer. No
one could accuse him of mercenary
motives if he had done so. Because he did
not come forward, as they wished, they
brought his silence up as a justification
of what they had previously attributed
to him. I don't know what Miss Galindo
thought herself; but Lady Ludlow has
told me how she shrank from hearing her
parents abuse him. Lady Ludlow
supposed that he was aware that they were
living in London. His father must have
known the fact, and it was curious if he had
never named it to his son. Besides, the
name was very uncommon; and it was
unlikely that it should never come across him,
in the advertisements of charity-sermons
which the new and rather eloquent curate of
Saint Mark's East was asked to preach. All
this time Lady Ludlow never lost sight of
them for Miss Galindo's sake. And when
the father and mother died, it was my lady
who upheld Miss Galindo in her determination
not to apply for any provision to her
cousin, the Italian baronet, but rather to
live on the hundred a-year which had been
settled on her mother and the children of
his son Hubert's marriage by the old
grandfather, Sir Lawrence.

Mr. Mark Gibson had risen to some
eminence as a barrister on the Northern
Circuit; but had died unmarried in the lifetime
of his father, a victim (so people said) to
intemperance. Doctor Trevor, the physician
who had been called in to Mr. Gray and
Harry Gregson, had married a sister of his.
And that was all my lady knew about the
Gibson family. But who was Bessy?

That mystery and secret came out, too, in
process of time. Miss Galindo had been to
Warwick some years before I arrived at
Hanbury; on some kind of business or
shopping, which can only be transacted in
a county-town. There was an old
Westmoreland connection between her and Mrs.
Trevor, though I believe the latter was too
young to have been made aware of her
brother's offer to Miss Galindo, at the time
when it took place; and such affairs, if they
are unsuccessful, are seldom spoken about
in the gentleman's family afterwards. But
the Gibsons and Galindos had been county
neighbours too long, for the connection not
to be kept up between two members settled far
away from their early homes. Miss Galindo
always desired her parcels to be sent to
Doctor Trevor's, when she went to Warwick
for shopping purchases. If she were going
any journey, and the coach did not come
through Warwick as soon as she arrived
(in my lady's coach or otherwise) from
Hanbury, she went to Doctor Trevor's to wait.
She was as much expected to sit down to the
household meals as if she had been one of the
family; and in after years it was Mrs.
Trevor who managed her repository business
for her.

So, on the day I spoke of, she had gone to
Doctor Trevor's to rest, and possibly to dine.
The post in those times came in at all hours
of the morning; and Doctor Trevor's letters
had not arrived until after his departure on
his morning round. Miss Galindo was
sitting down to dinner with Mrs. Trevor and
her seven children, when the Doctor came
in. He was flurried and uncomfortable, and
hurried the children away as soon as he
decently could. Then (rather feeling Miss
Galindo's presence an advantage, both as
a present restraint on the violence of his
wife's grief, and as a consoler when he was
absent on his afternoon round), he told Mrs.
Trevor of her brother's death. He had been
taken ill on circuit, and had hurried back to
his chambers in London, only to die. She
cried terribly; but Doctor Trevor said
afterwards, he never noticed that Miss Galindo
cared much about it one way or another.
She helped him to soothe his wife, promised