I
suppose. I couldn't possibly stay in the house after this, with my own
maid turned mistress. And now, Milly, I am come to throw myself on your
charity for a week or two. _Will_ you take me in?'

'That we will,' said Milly, 'if you will only put up with our poor rooms
and way of living. It will be delightful to have you!'

'It will soothe me to be with you and Mr. Barton a little while. I feel
quite unable to go among my other friends just at present. What those two
wretched people will do I don't know--leave the neighbourhood at once, I
hope. I entreated my brother to do so, before he disgraced himself.'

When Amos came home, he joined his cordial welcome and sympathy to
Milly's. By-and-by the Countess's formidable boxes, which she had
carefully packed before her indignation drove her away from Camp Villa,
arrived at the vicarage, and were deposited in the spare bedroom, and in
two closets, not spare, which Milly emptied for their reception. A week
afterwards, the excellent apartments at Camp Villa, comprising dining and
drawing rooms, three bedrooms and a dressing-room, were again to let, and
Mr. Bridmain's sudden departure, together with the Countess Czerlaski's
installation as a visitor at Shepperton Vicarage, became a topic of
general conversation in the neighbourhood. The keen-sighted virtue of
Milby and Shepperton saw in all this a confirmation of its worst
suspicions, and pitied the Rev. Amos Barton's gullibility.

But when week after week, and month after month, slipped by without
witnessing the Countess's departure--when summer and harvest had fled,
and still left her behind them occupying the spare bedroom and the
closets, and also a large proportion of Mrs. Barton's time and attention,
new surmises of a very evil kind were added to the old rumours, and began
to take the form of settled convictions in the minds even of Mr. Barton's
most friendly parishioners.

And now, here is an opportunity for an accomplished writer to
apostrophize calumny, to quote Virgil, and to show that he is acquainted
with the most ingenious things which have been said on that subject in
polite literature.

But what is opportunity to the man who can't use it? An undefecundated
egg, which the waves of time wash away into nonentity. So, as my memory
is ill-furnished, and my notebook still worse, I am unable to show myself
either erudite or eloquent apropos of the calumny whereof the Rev. Amos
Barton was the victim. I can only ask