"How long is it since all this—all you have been telling me about—happened?" (Leonard was eight years old.)
"Why—let me see. It was before I was married, and I was married three years, and poor dear Pearson has been deceased five—I should say going on for nine years this summer. Blush roses would become your complexion, perhaps, better than these lilacs," said she, as with superficial observation she watched Jemima turning the bonnet round and round on her hand—the bonnet that her dizzy eyes did not see.
"Thank you. It is very pretty. But I don't want a bonnet. I beg your pardon for taking up your time." And with an abrupt bow to the discomfited Mrs Pearson, she was out and away in the open air, threading her way with instinctive energy along the crowded street. Suddenly she turned round, and went back to Mrs Pearson's with even more rapidity than she had been walking away from the house.
"I have changed my mind," said she, as she came, breathless, up into the show-room. "I will take the bonnet. How much is it?"
"Allow me to change the flowers; it can be done in an instant, and then you can see if you would not prefer the roses; but with either foliage it is a lovely little bonnet," said Mrs Pearson, holding it up admiringly on her hand.
"Oh! never mind the flowers—yes! change them to roses." And she stood by, agitated (Mrs Pearson thought with impatience), all the time the milliner was making the alteration with skilful, busy haste.
"By the way," said Jemima, when she saw the last touches were being given, and that she must not delay executing the purpose which was the real cause of her return—"Papa, I am sure, would not like your connecting Mrs Denbigh's name with such a—story as you have been telling me."
"Oh dear! ma'am, I have too much respect for you all to think of doing such a thing! Of course I know, ma'am, that it is not to be cast up to any lady that she is like anybody disreputable."
"But I would rather you did not name the likeness to any one," said Jemima; "not to any one. Don't tell any one the story you have told me this morning."
"Indeed, ma'am, I should never think of such a thing! My poor husband could have borne witness that I am as close as the grave where there is anything to conceal."