When Gwen and Minna went into Cecca's dressing-room to take off their bonnets (for Colin insisted that they should make a day of it), Gwen was suddenly moved by that benevolent instinct aforesaid to make a confidante of the pretty little governess—who, by the way, had got a new and more fashionable bonnet from a Roman Parisian milliner expressly for the happy occasion. Poor little thing! after all, it was very natural she should be dreadfully in love with her handsome clever sculptor cousin. 'I myself very nearly fell in love with him once, indeed,' Gwen murmured to herself philosophically, with the calm inner confidence of a newly-found affection. So she said to Minna with a meaning look, after a few arch little remarks about Colin's success as a rising sculptor, 'I have something to tell you, Miss Wroe, that I think will please you. I tell it to you because I know the subject is one you're much interested in; but, if you please you must treat it as a secret—a very great secret. I'm—well, to tell you the truth, Miss Wroe, I'm engaged to be married.'
Minna's face turned pale as death, and she gasped faintly, but she answered nothing.
Gwen saw the cause of her anxiety at once, and hastened eagerly to reassure her.
'And if you'll promise not to say a word about it to anybody on earth, I'll tell you who it is—it's your cousin's American friend, Mr. Hiram Winthrop.'
Minna looked at her for a second in a transport of joy, and then burst suddenly into a flood of tears.
Gwen didn't for a moment pretend to misunderstand her. She knew what the tears meant, and she sympathised with them too deeply not to show her understanding frankly and openly. After all, the little governess was really at heart just a woman even as she herself was. 'There, there, dear,' she said, laying Minna's head upon her shoulder tenderly; 'cry on, cry on; cry as much as ever you want to; it'll do you good and relieve you. I know all about it, and I was sure you mistook me for a moment, and had got a wrong notion into your head, somehow; and that was why I took the liberty of telling you my little secret. It's all right, dear; don't be in the least afraid about it. Here, Cecca, quick; a glass of water!'
Cecca brought the water hastily, and then looking up with a wondering look into the tall Englishwoman's clear-cut face, she asked sternly, 'What is this you have been saying to the dear little signorina?'
