‘Mr. Flight?’ asked Jane anxiously.
‘Yes; a young clergyman, just what we used to call Puseyite when I left England; but that name seems to be gone out now.’
‘Anyway,’ said Jane, ‘I am sure he had nothing but good to say of Miss White, or indeed of her brother; and I am afraid the poor mother is very ill.’
‘That’s true, Miss Mohun; but you see there may be one side to a lady or a parson, and another to a practical man like my partner. Not but that I should be willing enough to do anything in reason for poor Dick’s widow and children, but not to keep them in idleness, or letting them think themselves too good to work.’
‘That I am sure these two do not. Their earnings quite keep the family. I know no one who works harder than Miss White, between her business, her lodgers, the children, and her helpless mother.’
‘I saw her mosaics—very fair, very clever, some of them; but I’m afraid she is a sad little flirt, Miss Mohun.’
‘Mr. White,’ said Lord Rotherwood, ‘did ever you hear of a poor girl beset by an importunate youth, but his family thought it was all her fault?’
‘If Mr. White would see her,’ said Jane, ‘he would understand at a glance that the attraction is perfectly involuntary; and I know from other sources how persistently she has avoided young Stebbing; giving up Sunday walks to prevent meeting him, accepting nothing from him, always avoiding tete-a-tetes.’
‘Hum! But tell me this, madam,’ said Mr. White eagerly, ‘how is it that, if these young folks are so steady and diligent as you would make out, that eldest brother writes to me every few months for help to support them?’
‘Oh!’ Jane breathed out, then, rallying, ‘I know nothing about that eldest. Yes, I do though! His sister told my niece that all the rents of the three houses went to enable Richard to appear as he ought at the solicitor’s office at Leeds.’