"Who dares to say so of my father's wife?"
"Hush! May. There's no need to call her your father's wife yet. Signor Valli says the person in question——"
"Signor Valli? Then I don't believe a word of it. Not one word. I know he talks wildly, and jumps at things. Why, he told Clara Bertram that my mother was a foreigner, and that he had met her. So you see how accurate and trustworthy Signor Valli is." Then, after a moment, as if struck by a sudden thought, she asked, "Is—she a foreigner?"
"I believe so."
"Then that is what he meant, I suppose."
"It's right to tell you, May, that Signor Valli is not the only one who has heard disagreeable things."
"Oh, of course, they all baa' one after the other! You have no idea, granny, what foolish back-biting talk goes on among the people whom Aunt Pauline calls 'society.' I've seen them roll a morsel of gossip over and over, while it kept growing all the time like a snow-ball—or a mud-ball. And no doubt many people whom Aunt Pauline doesn't call 'society' are as bad. A sheep is a sheep, whichever side of the hedge it is on," said this young censor with fine scorn.
Mrs. Dobbs in her heart did not put implicit faith in the stories which reached her. The young and the old—when they are sound-hearted—are both prone to disbelieve slander—the young from innocence, the old from experience; for there is no lesson more surely taught by life than the evil lightness with which evil is attributed.
But with regard to these particular stories, unwelcome corroboration was given to Mrs. Dobbs by Clara Bertram. Clara carried out her proposal of going to sing at Jessamine Cottage. She went there one afternoon when May was absent at the Hadlows', and introduced herself. There were only Mrs. Dobbs and Mr. Weatherhead to listen to her; but she sat down at the old square piano—feebly tinkling now, but tinkling always in tune, like the conscientious ghost of a defunct instrument—and sang her best. Her audience, though limited, was highly appreciative; and she soon found that their applause was not given ignorantly.
Apart from the charm of her singing, Clara won their sympathies by her kindly, unaffected simplicity. She inspired trustfulness. One must have been blindly false one's self to doubt her truth. Mrs. Dobbs was moved to question her a little about Valli.