“Married? Has he written to say so? Did you know anything about it?”
“He has not written, but my uncle has picked up a report, which he heard from Mr Hatton, that James has been married for some time. Of course if he had made a particularly creditable choice there would be no occasion for secrecy. We have heard less than usual of him lately.”
“Do you know, can you guess at all who it is, George?”
“Well, I’m not sure, I think I can form a notion.”
“Is it so very bad?”
“Quite a low connection, they say, not at all what my father would like, of course. But I can’t undertake to answer for James, I don’t know anything about it.”
“What shall you do? Oh, George, don’t you think it might be made a turning point? If James would write to your father and tell him all.”
“I shall write and advise him to make a clean breast of it; but he has offended my father over and over again: and at last, people must take the consequences of their actions.”
Mrs George heard nothing more of the correspondence that ensued, she was not in the habit of hearing much of the family affairs; and being clever, and with strong clear opinions as to what was right and good, she would have liked to receive a little more confidence, and to have known the meaning of the lawyer’s visits which just at that time were frequent. She could not forget these matters in the fact that her little Katharine had cut two teeth, or leave them in utter trust to her husband’s judgment.
Whatever playful companionship or constant caresses the baby missed in her mother, was supplied by a young nursemaid named Alice Taylor, a merry, laughing, black-eyed girl, who was devoted to the baby, and so thought well of by her mistress, but who was not approved of by the other servants, among whom she had made no secret of her preference for the lively complimentary Mr James over the very grave and silent young master now in command.