“I do think that girl ought to be sent away from Carnac; I do, indeed. Really, my dear, if I had felt disposed to accept any advances on the part of Mr Tregenna, his conduct with that flighty creature would have set me against him.”
Rhoda’s heart beat faster still, and the colour went and came in her face as she listened. She blamed herself for hearkening to such petty gossip, but her visitor was determined to go on, and added confidence to confidence, for, as it may be gathered, Miss Martha Pavey’s peculiar idiosyncrasy was a belief that was terribly persecuted by the male sex, who eagerly sought her hand in marriage, though at the present time a gossip of Carnac had told another gossip that Miss Pavey was “setting her gashly old cap now at Methody Parson.”
“Don’t you think, my dear,” continued the visitor, “that your papa ought to interfere?”
“Interfere? About what?” exclaimed Rhoda, whose thoughts had run off to her conversation with her father that morning.
“Why, what are you thinking about, Rhoda?” cried Miss Pavey. “Oh, you naughty, naughty girl, you! You were thinking about our handsome young clergyman and his young friend. Oh, for shame, for shame?”
“Indeed, I was not!” exclaimed Rhoda, half amused, half indignant at her visitor’s folly.
“Oh, don’t tell me, dear,” said Miss Pavey, shaking her head. “It’s very shocking of you, but I don’t wonder. See how few marriageable gentlemen there are about here.”
“Miss Pavey, pray don’t be so absurd,” exclaimed Rhoda.
“Oh, no, my dear, I will not,” said the visitor, blushing, and then indulging in a peculiar giggle; “but after all, there is a something in wedlock, my dear Rhoda.”
“A something in wedlock?”