“But you will not tell of me, dear friend, you will not. I never saw Lady Strickland like that; I did not know she could be in such a rage.”
“No wonder, when a fellow like that came peeping and prying like a raven to see whether the poor babe was still breathing,” cried Anne indignantly. “How could you bring him in?”
“Fellow indeed! Why he is a colonel in the Life-guards, and the Princess’s equerry; and who has a right to know about the child if not his own sister—or half-sister?”
“She is not a very loving sister,” replied Anne. “You know well, Jane, how many would not be sorry to make out that it is as that man would fain have you say.”
“Well, I told him it was no such thing, and laughed the very notion to scorn.”
“It were better not to talk with him at all.”
“But you will not speak of it. If I were turned away my father would beat me. Nay, I know not what he might not do to me. You will not tell, dear darling Portia, and I will love you for ever.”
“I have no call to tell,” said Anne coldly, but she was disgusted and weary, and moreover not at all sure that she, as the other Protestant rocker, and having been in the Park on that same day, was not credited with some of the mischievous gossip that had passed.
“There, Portia, that is what you get by walking with that stupid Humphreys,” said Oriana. “She knows no better than to blab to any one who will be at the trouble to seem sweet upon her, though she may get nothing by it.”
“Would it be better if she did?” asked Anne.