“Who worm themselves in.”
“Miss Bowater could have no occasion for worming. They must be quite on equal terms.”
“At any rate, she was only engaged to their poor relation.”
“What poor relation? Tell me! Who told you?”
“Raymond. It was a young attorney—a kind of cousin of the Poynsett side, named Douglas.”
“What? There’s a cross in the churchyard to Elizabeth Douglas, daughter of Francis Poynsett, and wife of James Douglas, and at the bottom another inscription to Archibald Douglas, her son, lost in the Hippolyta.”
“Yes, that must be the man. He was flying from England, having been suspected of some embezzlement.”
“Indeed! And was Jenny engaged to him? Julius told me that Mrs. Douglas had been his mother’s dearest friend, and that this Archie had been brought up with them, but he did not say any more.”
“Perhaps he did not like having had a cousin in an attorney’s office. I am sure I had no notion of such a thing.”
Rosamond laughed till she was exhausted at the notion of Julius’s sharing the fastidious objections she heard in Cecil’s voice; and then, struck by the sadness of the story, she cried, “And that makes them all so fond of Miss Bowater. Poor girl, what must she not have gone through! And yet how cheerful she does look!”