"Well now! didn't I know it from the first?"
"Then what a wicked old woman you were not to tell," said Augustus.
"That's all very well, Master Augustus. How would you like me to tell of you;—for I could, you know?"
"You wicked old woman, you couldn't do anything of the kind."
"Oh, couldn't I? But I defy all the world to say a word of Miss Madeline but what's good,—only I did know all along which way the wind was blowing. Lord love you, Mr. Graham, when you came in here all of a smash like, I knew it wasn't for nothing."
"You think he did it on purpose then," said Staveley.
"Did it on purpose? What; make up to Miss Madeline? Why, of course he did it on purpose. He's been a-thinking of it ever since Christmas night, when I saw you, Master Augustus, and a certain young lady when you came out into the dark passage together."
"That's a downright falsehood, Mrs. Baker."
"Oh—very well. Perhaps I was mistaken. But now, Mr. Graham, if you don't treat our Miss Madeline well—"
"That's just what I've been telling him," said her brother. "If he uses her ill, as he did his former wife—breaks her heart as he did with that one—"