Of course his friends noticed all this, as friends notice every thing. Madly and blindly people go through life, imagining that their thoughts and actions are--some of them, at least--known but to themselves alone; whereas all of them--all such, at least, as they would prefer keeping secret--are public property, and as thoroughly patent as if they had been proclaimed from the market-place cross. You may go on in London living for years next door to a neighbour whose name you are unacquainted with, and whom you have never seen; but make him an acquaintance, give him some interest in you, and without your in the least suspecting it, he will find out the whole story of your life, will know all about the young lady with the fair hair in Wiltshire, the hundred pounds borrowed from Robinson, the disappointment at Uncle Prendergast's will--all the little things, in fact, which you thought were buried in your own bosom; and will sit down opposite you at table with an innocent ingenuous face, as though your affairs were the very last things with which he would trouble himself. We all do this, day by day, with the noblest hypocrisy, and receive from our dear intimate statements of facts which we know to be false, and warpings of statements which we know to be perverted, with "Indeeds!" and "Reallys?" and head-noddings of outward acquiescence and mocking incredulity in our hearts. Barbara Churchill had been the one grand subject of conversation for the Mesopotamian gossips ever since her marriage: they had lived upon her, and found that she improved in flavour. Her appearance, her dress, her manners; what they were pleased to term her "stand-offishness;" her shortcomings as a housekeeper; her ignorance in the matter of mending under-linen; her novel-reading and piano-playing--all these had been toothsome morsels, far more enjoyable than the heavy pies, the thick chops, and the sardines which figured in that horrible Mesopotamian meal known as "a thick tea;" and had been picked to the very bone. And then, when it began to be whispered about--as it very soon did--that there were dissensions in the Churchill camp, that all did not go as smoothly as it should, and that, in fact, quarrels were rife--then came the crowning delight of the banquet, and the female portion of the Great-Adullam-Street community was nearly delirious with excitement. Although old Mrs. Churchill, from her kind-heartedness and simplicity, had always been a great favourite with her neighbours, she had no idea of the extent of her popularity until this period. Her little rooms were literally beset with female friends; and she had invitations to tea-parties three-deep. To these invitations--to as many of them, at least, as was possible--she invariably responded. By nature the old lady hated the character of a gossip, and would have been highly indignant had she been charged with any propensity for chattering; but easily impressible by those with whom she was brought into contact,