Bella shuddered. Mr. Piper’s conversation was growing significant. She would have given a great deal to get away. She thought of Cyril Culverhouse, of one who in her mind was the image of dignity and refinement. What would his love have been like, could she have won it? In what sweet words, borrowed unconsciously from divinest poet, would he have whispered his passion? And here was Mr. Piper breathing hard, and looking odiously warm and puffy, evidently bent upon making her an offer. ‘And, if he should ask me, all of them at home would want me to accept him,’ thought Bella, despairingly. ‘I should be worried to death.’ ‘Come into the drawing-room,’ said Mr. Piper. ‘The children won’t interrupt us there. I want to be serious.’ He led her into that rarely used apartment, which had a vault-like aspect now that Mrs. Piper no longer received her morning visitors in it. She had been wont to regale her guests in a stately manner with sherry and fancy biscuits, brought in upon a monster salver of the Prince Regent’s period, in Garrard’s worst style, with massive gadroon edges and a great flourish of engraving, as weighty as a coal-scuttle. The room had smelt of sherry and biscuits in Mrs. Piper’s time. Now it only smelt of mildew. There was a centre ottoman under the chandelier, a birthday present from Mr. Piper to his wife, and one of the first of its kind that had been seen in Little Yafford. Upon this the manufacturer seated himself, with his shoulder at an uncomfortable angle with Bella’s shoulder, after the manner of such ottomans. ‘Bella, I’ve been in love with you ever so long,’ exclaimed Mr. Piper, plunging desperately into the middle of things. ‘Good gracious, Mr. Piper, how can you say anything so horrible?’ cried Bella. ‘Your poor dear wife has been dead hardly six months.’ ‘I was not in love with you during my sainted wife’s lifetime,’ said Mr. Piper. ‘My principles are too firmly fixed for that. I am not a Mahomedan. But I had an eye for the Beautiful, even in Mrs. Piper’s lifetime, and I knew that you came up to the mark in that line. Mrs. Piper’s death left a vide here.’ Mr. Piper touched his waistcoat, to indicate that the vacuum was in his heart. ‘A vide which I feel you can fill. You can be a refined and ladylike mother to my children, a clever mistress of my house, and a comfort and happiness to me. It is in you to be all that, Bella, I know it and feel it; and I will go so far as to say that it is a fine opportunity for you--an opportunity which any young woman in your position would be proud to grasp.’ ‘I could never marry where I did not love,’ faltered Bella, foreseeing no end to the trouble at home that would come out of this. ‘Perhaps not,’ said Mr. Piper, looking warmer and puffier than ever, ‘but what’s to prevent your loving me?’ ‘I respect you,’ murmured Bella, feeling obliged to say something civil.