“Hem!” said Aunt Rachel. The monosyllable was at once curt and frozen. It implied as complete a denial as could have been expressed in a volume.
“Why, what have you got again him?” asked Mrs. Sennacherib.
“I?” said Rachel. “Against whom, my dear creature?”
Mrs. Sennacherib had spoken in the absolute certainty of impulse, and found herself a little confused.
“Mr. Gold,” she answered, somewhat feebly.
“What should I have against Mr. Gold?” asked the old maid, with a chill air of dignity and a pretence of surprise. She was not going to take everybody into her confidence.
“What, to be sure?” said Mrs. Sennacherib, retiring from instinct. “In old days there used to be a sort of kindness between you; at least it was said so.”
“It is a great pity that people cannot be taught to mind their own business,” said Rachel.
“So it is, Miss Blythe—so it is,” Mrs. Sennacherib assented, hastily. “I hate them folks as has got nothing better to do than to talk about their neighbors. But, as I was a-sayin', he's a-breakin' up fast, poor man, and that's a thing as is only too clear to a old experienced eye like mine. A beautiful sperrit the man's got, to be sure, but allays a mild and sorrowful look with him. When me and Sennacherib was first married, he'd a habit of coming over here with 'Saiah Eld and Mr. Fuller for the music. It was pretty to hear 'em, for they'm all fine players, though mostly theer music was above my mark; but sometimes they'd get him to play somethin' by himself, and then 'twas sweet. But he give up playin' all of a sudden—I could niver mek out why or wheer-for, an' I suppose it's over five-an'-twenty 'ear since he touched the fiddle.”
Now Mrs. Sennacherib, though not an untruthful woman as a general thing, had an idea as to the why and wherefore of Ezra Gold's withdrawal from the amateur ranks of Heydon Hay. She took most of her ideas from her husband, though she was not accustomed to think so, and it was he who had inoculated her with this one. She laid her small trap for her old friend and school-fellow with an admirable nonchalance and indifference of aspect, and looked at Rachel with an eye from which all appearance of speculation was carefully abstracted.