“Just tell me how you came to say what you did, Rosalie, for the words trouble me.”
“Nay, never heed them, dear, kind mamma. Forget them; they were wicked words, since they gave you pain.”
“Rosalie, I insist upon knowing what put such a thought into your head.”
“Mother, sometimes I hear things not intended for my ear, which, nevertheless, I cannot help hearing”—
“Explain.”
“Why, often when I have been reclining in a shaded window-seat with a book, or lying on a distant sofa with my eyes closed, and they think I am asleep, or quite abstracted, I hear them say, ‘Poor girl, she is a trouble to herself and all around her.’ ‘She can never live to be a woman; so, if it were the Lord’s will, it were better she should die now.’ ‘Her death would be a great relief to the young widow; and, by the way, Mrs. Vivian would come into the whole property then, would she not?’ That is all, dear mamma. Do not let it disturb you. It did not disturb me the least.”
Mrs. Vivian placed her hand upon the bell. Miss Vivian gently arrested her purpose, saying—
“What are you about to do, mamma?”
“Ring, and order our carriage. I will not stay in this house, where you are so cruelly wounded, one minute longer than is required to put the horses to the carriage.”
“Dear mother, you cannot surely imagine that it is in this house I have ever been injured, in word or deed?”