. She had
written very freely, and very frequently to Sir Francis, and Sir
Francis, to tell the truth, had not responded in the same spirit. She
had received but two answers to six letters, and each answer had been
conveyed in about three lines. There had been no expressions from
him of confiding love, nor any pressing demands for an immediate
marriage. They had all been commenced without even naming her, and
had been finished by the simple signature of his initials. But to
Miss Altifiorla they had been satisfactory. She knew how silly she
would be to expect from such an one as her intended husband long
epistles such as a school girl would require, and, in order to keep
him true to her, had determined to let him know how little exacting
she was inclined to be. She would willingly do all the preliminary
writing if only she could secure her position as Lady Geraldine. She
wrote such letters, letters so full of mingled wit and love and fun,
that she was sure that he must take delight in reading them. "Easy
reading requires hard writing," she said to herself as she copied
for the third time one of her epistles, and copied it studiously
in such handwriting that it should look to have been the very work
of negligence. In all this she had been successful as she thought,
and told herself over and over again how easy it was for a clever
woman to make captive a man of mark, provided that she set herself
assiduously to the task.

She soon descended from her friends to the shopkeepers, and found
that her news was received very graciously by the mercantile
interests of the city. The milliners, the haberdashers, the furriers
and the bootmakers of Exeter received her communication and her
orders with pleased alacrity. With each of them she held a little
secret conference, telling each with a smiling whisper what fate
was about to do for her. To even the upholsterers, the bankers, the
hotel-keepers and the owners of post-horses she was communicative,
making every one the gratified recipient of her tidings. Thus in
a short time all Exeter knew that Sir Francis Geraldine was about
to lead to the hymeneal altar Miss Altifiorla, and it must be
acknowledged that all Exeter expressed various opinions on the
subject. They who understood that Miss Altifiorla was to pay for the
supplies ordered out of her own pocket declared for the most part how
happy a man was Sir Francis. But those who could only look to Sir
Francis for possible future cus