"But old Sutton told me, Aunt Julia, and he knows. Don't it make you sorry, Uncle Harvey behaving like that?"
"Mittie, listen to me!" Julia turned upon the child a livid face, spotted with red. She could hardly hold in her passion. "Listen to me! You are never never to say such things about your uncle—never! They are false and cruel. Sutton has been talking wicked untruths. He must be a very bad old man. Uncle Harvey is a dear good uncle to you, and I wonder you are not ashamed to listen to anything against him. The money is his rightly—not Hermione's. It never was or could be Hermione's. The estate was entailed; which of course you can't understand; but it means that Hermione has no sort of right to the place. Your uncle gives her a home, and he is not obliged to do even that—it is all kindness. Will you remember what I am saying?"
Mittie might be in no danger of forgetting, but perhaps she was not fully convinced.
"Sutton said he knew quite well," she murmured.
"If Sutton puts such notions into your head, we shall have to forbid you ever to talk to him. I am sure Miss Fitzalan would not be pleased. Did she hear all this?"
Mittie shook her head.
"I haven't seen my Marjory since Sutton told me. But Marjory does love cousin Hermione, oh so dearly, and she is so dreadfully sorry for her."
"Hermione has lost her grandfather, and of course everybody is sorry. But this about her money is all nonsense. Mind, Mittie, you are not to talk so again."
Mittie seemed to acquiesce in a childish fashion, and on entering the house she ran away. Julia could not resolve to enter the drawing-room at once. She was scared and angry still with the shock of that accusation. It was unendurable that people in the place should be saying such things of her husband. And if the notion were widely spread, how was it to be met? Shutting Mittie's lips would not shut the lips of other people.
Ten minutes later she stole down to the library, believing that Harvey would be there, and her belief proved correct. A small lamp, lighted, stood on the escritoire, and Harvey sat before it, writing letters. Papers strewn carelessly about spoke of a less orderly nature in the present than in the past owner of Westford. As Julia went in he glanced up with a smile, his usual greeting, and then perhaps he noticed something in her face not ordinary, for he asked at once, "Anything gone wrong?"