"Ax no questions, and may be you'll be tould no lies," replied Richard.
"In course we all knows it's along of her ladyship's marriage which warn't no marriage," said the cook. "May the heavens be her bed when the Lord takes her! A betther lady nor a kinder-hearted niver stepped the floor of a kitchen."
"'Deed an that's thrue for you, cook," said Biddy, with the corner of her apron up to her eyes. "But tell me, Richard, won't poor Mr. Herbert have nothing?"
"Never you mind about Mr. Herbert," said Richard, who had seen Biddy grow up from a slip of a girl, and therefore was competent to snub her at every word.
"Ah, but I do mind," said the girl. "I minds more about him than ere a one of 'em; and av' that Lady Clara won't have em a cause of this—"
"Not a step she won't, thin," said Corney. "She'll go back to Mr. Owen. He was her fust love. You'll see else." And so the matter was discussed in the servants' hall at the great house.
But perhaps the greatest surprise, the greatest curiosity, and the greatest consternation, were felt at the parsonage. The rumour reached Mr. Townsend at one of the Relief Committees;—and Mrs. Townsend from the mouth of one of her servants, during his absence, on the same day; and when Mr. Townsend returned to the parsonage, they met each other with blank faces.
"Oh, Æneas!" said she, before she could get his greatcoat from off his shoulders, "have you heard the news?"
"What news?—about Castle Richmond?"
"Yes; about Castle Richmond." And then she knew that he had heard it.