“You are really too provoking, Fanny,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck, removing her handkerchief from two very red eyelids. “You never are satisfied when you see us happy. Cary has shown you enough to convince any one—”
“Anyone disposed to conviction, mamma,” broke in Miss Kennyfeck, haughtily. “Hush, here's Olivia.”
“Mr. Meek is reading the 'Post,' ma,” said the young lady, entering; “and he has got the other papers in his pocket, but he says there's really nothing of any interest in them.”
“I think Livy should be told, mamma,” whispered Miss Kennyfeck to her mother.
“I quite agree with you, Cary,” said Mrs. Kennyfeck; “I never was a friend to any secrecy in families. Your father, indeed, I grieve to say, does not participate in my sentiments; but much may be excused in him, from the habits of his profession, and, I will also say, from the class in life he sprang from.” Here Mrs. Kennyfeck, who had spoken like one delivering an oracle, stopped to drop a tear over the sad mésalliance which had condemned her to become the wife of an attorney. “Olivia, my dear, circumstances have disclosed the nature of the interview which Mr. Kennyfeck would not confide to us. It is one in which you are deeply concerned, my dear. Have you any suspicion to what I allude?”
Olivia assumed her very sweetest look of innocence, but made no reply.
“Mamma wants you to be candid enough to say, if there is anything in the way of particular attention you may have received lately, which should corroborate the impressions we entertain.”
Miss Kennyfeck delivered these words so categorically, that her sister well knew how, in the event of refusal, a searching cross-examination was reserved for her.
Olivia looked down, and a very slight embarrassment might be detected in the quickened heaving of her chest.
“Tell us, my darling,” said Aunt Fanny, “if—if any one has, in a manner so to say—you understand—eh?”