"Perfectly so, madam."
"A very laudable object: then, Mrs. Grey, you are, I presume, a widow?"
There was a moment's hesitation. Margaret pressed her hand to her side as if she were in pain, and Mrs. Augustus eyed her suspiciously: "My question, Mrs. Grey, is a simple one."
"And my answer, madam, can be equally simple. I am not a widow."
"Not a widow!" Mrs. Brown drew back her chair and took another long look—one that expressed incredulous horror. "Not a widow! And pray, Mrs. Grey, where is your husband?"
In spite of herself, Margaret smiled feebly, but the smile was a nervous one. She looked up and shook her head: "I am sorry to say, madam, that I cannot tell."
"Then," and Mrs. Brown again receded, as if to put as much space as possible between herself and this naughty person—"then, Mrs. Grey, you are separated from your husband?"
"I am."
The answer was spoken in a low, clear voice, very calmly, but with a certain intonation of sadness that would have struck upon a more sensitive ear. To Mrs. Augustus Brown this very quietness of demeanor was in the highest degree brazen. She fluttered her fan, drew herself up to her full height, and looked virtuous as a Roman matron (in her own opinion, be it said parenthetically).
"You seem strangely forgetful, Mrs. Grey, of the importance of the position which you seek to fill in my household. With the utmost coolness you describe yourself as a woman living separated from her husband. Goodness knows why. For all I can tell, you may have done something very wrong." Here Mrs. Brown coughed and hid an imaginary blush behind her fan. "And yet," she continued, when the blush had been given time to fade, "you wish to take the entire charge of little innocents, the eldest of whom is only ten, and seven of them. I had my children so quick." Here Mrs. Brown lost her thread. To mothers of large families these reminiscences are always bewildering.