She wiped her eyes again, and as she did so the woman’s entire aspect changed. For just then Miss Cora Dean was driven by in a hired carriage, her dark eyes flashing, half veiled as they were by the long fringe of lashes, and then she was gone.
“Ah!” exclaimed Miss Clode angrily, “you are a beauty, sitting up there as haughty as a duchess, and your wicked old mother lying back there in her silks and satins and laces, as if all Saltinville belonged to you, instead of being drowned. But mind this, my fine madams, I may be only little Miss Clode at the library, but if you work any harm between you to those I love I’ll have you both bundled neck and crop out of the place, or I’ll know the reason why.
“A wretch!” she said, after a pause. “She’d like nothing better than to tempt him to follow her. But he won’t! No; he’s thinking of that girl Claire, and she is not half good enough for him. I don’t like them and their fine ways. I don’t like Denville with his mincing, idiotic airs. How that man can go about as he does with the stain of that poor old woman’s death at his house astounds me.
“Well, poor wretch,” she said scornfully, “it is his trade, as this miserable go-between business is mine. Perhaps he has fallen as low as I have; but I don’t live as he does—as if he had thousands a year, when they are next door to starving and horribly in debt.
“Ah, well, it is to make a good show in his shop,” she went on, speaking very bitterly—“to dress the window, and sell his girls, and start his boys.
“Nice bargain he has made in selling one. There’s something more about that wretched little empty-headed child than I know, but I shall find out yet. Surely he does not think of that boy and Drelincourt. Oh, it would be too absurd. I’ve not seen the other brother lately. What a family! And for that boy to be taken with—oh, I must stop it if I can.
“Mrs Burnett? Yes, I must know about her. There was a great deal going on with that poor young artist who went away—and died. There was some mystery about that, I know, and—”
“What are you talking about, auntie? I thought there was some one in the shop, and came to see if you wanted me.”
“Talking? I talking? Oh, nonsense, my dear. I was only thinking aloud.”
“Well, auntie, it was very loud, for I heard you say you would have to find out something about Mrs Burnett.”