"Molly Gibson has done no such thing!" said Miss Browning indignantly. "How dare you repeat such stories about poor Mary's child? Never let me hear you say such things again."
"I can't help it. Mrs. Dawes told me; and she says it's all over the town. I told her I did not believe a word of it. And I kept it from you; and I think I should have been really ill if I'd kept it to myself any longer. Oh, sister! what are you going to do?"
For Miss Browning had risen without speaking a word, and was leaving the room in a stately and determined fashion.
"I'm going to put on my bonnet and things, and then I shall call upon Mrs. Dawes, and confront her with her lies."
"Oh, don't call them lies, sister; it's such a strong, ugly word. Please call them tallydiddles, for I don't believe she meant any harm. Besides—besides—if they should turn out to be truth? Really, sister, that's the weight on my mind; so many things sounded as if they might be true."
"What things?" said Miss Browning, still standing with judicial erectness of position in the middle of the floor.
"Why—one story was that Molly had given him a letter."
"Who's him? How am I to understand a story told in that silly way?" Miss Browning sat down on the nearest chair, and made up her mind to be patient if she could.
"Him is Mr. Preston. And that must be true; because I missed her from my side when I wanted to ask her if she thought blue would look green by candlelight, as the young man said it would, and she had run across the street, and Mrs. Goodenough was just going into the shop, just as she said she was."
Miss Browning's distress was overcoming her anger; so she only said, "Phœbe, I think you'll drive me mad. Do tell me what you heard from Mrs. Dawes in a sensible and coherent manner, for once in your life."