"Mamma," said Arabella, as soon as the enemy was gone, "I have got such a headache that I think I will go up-stairs."
"And I will go with you, dear," said Camilla.
Mr. Gibson, before he left the house, confided his secret to the maternal ears of Mrs. French. He certainly had been allured into making an offer to Dorothy Stanbury, but was ready to atone for this crime by marrying her daughter,—Camilla,—as soon as might be convenient. He was certainly driven to make this declaration by intense cowardice,—not to excuse himself, for in that there could be no excuse;—but how else should he dare to suggest that he might as well leave the house? "Shall I tell the dear girl?" asked Mrs. French. But Mr. Gibson requested a fortnight, in which to consider how the proposition had best be made.
CHAPTER XLIX.
MR. BROOKE BURGESS AFTER SUPPER.
Brooke Burgess was a clerk in the office of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in London, and as such had to do with things very solemn, grave, and almost melancholy. He had to deal with the rents of episcopal properties, to correspond with clerical claimants, and to be at home with the circumstances of underpaid vicars and perpetual curates with much less than £300 a-year; but yet he was as jolly and pleasant at his desk as though he were busied about the collection of the malt tax, or wrote his letters to admirals and captains instead of to deans and prebendaries. Brooke Burgess had risen to be a senior clerk, and was held in some respect in his office; but it was not perhaps for the amount of work he did, nor yet on account of the gravity of his demeanour, nor for the brilliancy of his intellect. But if not clever, he was sensible; though he was not a dragon of official virtue, he had a conscience;—and he possessed those small but most valuable gifts by which a man becomes popular among men. And thus it had come to pass in all those battles as to competitive merit which had taken place in his as in other public offices, that no one had ever dreamed of putting a junior over the head of Brooke Burgess. He was tractable, easy, pleasant, and therefore deservedly successful. All his brother clerks called him Brooke,—except the young lads who, for the first year or two of their service, still denominated him Mr. Burgess.
"Brooke," said one of his juniors, coming into his room and standing before the fireplace with a cigar in his mouth, "have you heard who is to be the new Commissioner?"
"Colenso, to be sure," said Brooke.
"What a lark that would be. And I don't see why he shouldn't. But it isn't Colenso. The name has just come down."