She looked round the drawing-room. It was spacious and lofty, but eminently commonplace in all its details. She began to think, idly--while the widower sank into a stertorous reverie, with his hands plunged deep into his shepherd’s plaid pockets--how she would make Mr. Piper refurnish the room if she were his wife. All those clumsy rosewood chairs and tables should be turned out, to give place to light gilded furniture, of the Louis Seize period, upholstered with sky-blue satin. The revival of old Dutch taste had not yet set in. People had not begun to go mad about Queen Anne cabinets and blue and white ginger-jars. Bella’s imagination did not soar above gilded chairs and blue satin curtains. ‘Come,’ said Mr. Piper, shaking himself out of his abstraction, like a dog coming out of the water, ‘come, Beller, what’s your ultamatum? Yes or no?’ ‘No,’ said Bella, firmly. ‘I am sorry to seem ungrateful for your flattering regard, but I can only answer no.’ And then she glanced round the drawing-room again, and thought how pretty it would look, all gay with blue and gold, and what a grand thing it would be to sit there, elegantly dressed, framed in flowers, like an old portrait by Boucher, receiving the best people in Little Yafford, and patronizing Miss Coyle. ‘Well, I’m sorry,’ said Mr. Piper, in his matter-of-fact tone, ‘and I think you’re a fool. Excuse me for mentioning it, but that’s my opinion, and I’m a man that always speaks my mind.’ ‘Perhaps, under the circumstances, it might be better for me not to come here any more,’ suggested Bella, rising to depart. ‘Well, I don’t know. It might be rather aggravating to my feelings for me to see you, perhaps--but never mind me. I’m nobody.’ ‘I am sure I had better not come,’ said Bella. ‘You will easily find some one to replace me.’ ‘Oh, Lord, yes,’ exclaimed Mr. Piper, testily. ‘Governesses are as plentiful as blackberries. Old and ugly, most of em--the cleverer they are the uglier. And bony. I find that learning generally runs into bone. If ever I see a man whose elbow and knee joints stand out extra sharp, and whose hair hasn’t been made acquainted with a pair of scissors for a twelvemonth, I make up my mind that he’s a professor.’ ‘Good-bye,’ faltered Bella, holding out her hand. ‘I hope you don’t feel angry with me?’ ‘I don’t feel pleased with you,’ answered Mr. Piper, ‘and I’m too candid to pretend it. Good-bye.’ They shook hands, and Bella went home, feeling very uncomfortable. She had refused the richest man in the neighbourhood, and she had lost her situation. How would the intelligence of these two facts be received by her anxious mother and her stony-hearted father? Bella knew that she would have to endure the reproaches and upbraidings of both. CHAPTER XXI. CYRIL’S NURSES.