“Well, then, I suppose he ran his horse,” added Jane, in the same quiet, drawling tone. “Something must have run, or they never would have got up the story.”
I wondered if Miss Jane Hitchcox had ever taken the trouble to ascertain who they were! I happened to know both the Viners, and to be quite certain there was not a word of truth in the report of the twenty thousand dollars, having heard all the particulars of the late failure from one of my former owners, who was an assignee, and a considerable creditor. Under the circumstances, I thought I would hint as much.
“Are you quite sure that the failure of Viner & Co. was owing to the circumstance you mention, Mr. Brigham?” I inquired.
“Pretty certain. I am 'measurably acquainted' with their affairs, and think I am tolerably safe in saying so.”
Now, “measurably acquainted” meant that he lived within twenty or thirty miles of those who did know something of the concerns of the house in question, and was in the way of catching scraps of the gossip that fell from disappointed creditors. How much of this is there in this good country of ours! Men who live just near enough to one another to feel the influence of all that rivalry, envy, personal strifes and personal malignancies, can generate, fancy they are acquainted, from this circumstance, with those to whom they have never even spoken. One-half the idle tales that circulate up and-down the land, come from authority not one tittle better than this. How much would men learn, could they only acquire the healthful lesson of understanding that nothing, which is much out of the ordinary way, and which, circulates as received truths illustrative of character, is true in all its material parts, and very little in any. But, to return to my passengers, and that portion of their conversation which most affected myself. They continued commenting on persons and families by name, seemingly more to keep their hands in, than for any other discoverable reason, as each appeared to be perfectly conversant with all the gossip that was started; when Sarah casually mentioned the name of Mrs. Bradfort, with some of whose supposed friends, it now came out, they had all a general visiting acquaintance.
“Dr. Hosack is of opinion she cannot live long, I hear,” said Jane, with a species of fierce delight in killing a fellow-creature, provided it only led to a gossip concerning her private affairs. “Her case has been decided to be a cancer, now, for more than a week, and she made her will last Tuesday.”
“Only last Tuesday!” exclaimed Sarah, in surprise. “Well, I heard she had made her will a twelvemonth since, and that she left all her property to young Rupert Hardinge; in the expectation, some persons thought, that he might marry her.”
“How could that be, my dear?” asked the husband; “in what would she be better off for leaving her own property to her husband?”
“Why, by law, would she not? I don't exactly know how it would happen, for I do not particularly understand these things; but it seems natural that a woman would be a gainer if she made the man she was about to marry her heir. She would have her thirds in his estate, would she not?”
“But, Mrs. Brigham,” said I, smiling, “is it quite certain Mrs. Bradfort wishes to marry Rupert Hardinge, at all?”