"The boy, you understand, Colonel, being a girl--myself," said Frances for the sake of clearness.
"I quite understand," said the Colonel frowning. "Go on."
"Then my master and mistress were carried off within a month of one another by fever," continued Miss Jewin. "They died in Burmah, where the Captain had gone with his regiment. I then took charge of Miss Hest, who was always called Master Francis, and came to Gerby Hall. Old Mr. Hest, the grandfather, just lived six months longer, but he died under the impression that his grand-daughter was a grandson. Miss Frances thus became possessed of the property."
"Didn't the lawyer know that she was a girl?" asked Towton surprised.
"No. As she had always been brought up as a boy the deception was complete, sir," said Miss Jewin, using the word with shameless deliberation. "The lawyer came here and saw Miss Frances in her boy's clothes."
"And in this way," explained Miss Hest, "it became current gossip in the village that I had a twin brother."
"A twin sister, you mean?" said the Colonel doubtfully.
"Well, you might put it that way. At all events, everyone in Bowderstyke believes to this day that there is a boy and a girl, or, rather, a man and a woman Hest. I alternately wore male and female clothes."
"Why was there any need for you to wear female clothes at all?"
"That was my fault," said Miss Jewin quickly. "When the succession to the estates was settled I could not bear that Miss Frances should masquerade any longer as a boy. I therefore dressed her in girl's clothes, to which she was entitled, and invented the twin story. Sometimes she was a boy, so that the lawyers should not learn the truth, and sometimes a girl to please me. There's the whole story."