“More secrets! more deception, Mary! Spare me, if you can, dear friend; I am sorely tried already.”
“I cannot spare you, my Lady, or I would do so, Heaven knows; nay, I would almost take the shame upon my own shoulders, if that might shield you from the sorrow it must needs bring with it. Miss Letty”——
“It is not fit that Shame and my daughter should be mentioned in the same breath,” replied my Lady, rising, and speaking with dignity. “Do not continue; I forbid you to speak. What you were going to say is false, and I will not listen.”
“It is true, my Lady—true as that the sun is shining now. Of course, Miss Letty has nothing to do with it; but it was through her I learned it.”
“Does she know it, then?” asked my Lady sternly.
“Certainly not, madam; and Heaven grant she never may. She's as pure-minded as any seraph, and, like Charity, thinketh no evil. But she told me this afternoon—seeing that you were troubled, and not liking to pain you, perhaps without reason, and speaking to me as her old nurse and friend, who loves all the Lisgards, good and bad (for they are not all good, alas, alas!), and who will love them to the end—she told me that something which she had overheard between Miss Rose and Master Walter”——
“You mean Sir Richard,” interposed my Lady.
“No, madam—his brother. It was Master Walter that I was speaking of the other day in the carriage, and whom I understood your Ladyship to say that Miss Aynton had refused. I knew very well that they were love-making, flirting and such like upon the sly; but I did not know—I could not suspect——- O mistress dear, a terrible disgrace has befallen you, through that infamous young hussy, Miss Rose Aynton—though what Master Walter could have seen in the Jade, I am sure passes my comprehension altogether.”
“Disgrace! Walter! Rose Aynton! What do you mean, woman?” asked my Lady angrily. “You must be mad, to say such things. I heard Sir Richard ask the girl to be his wife with my own ears, and she refused him.”
“Did she, my Lady? Well, I'm surprised at that, for I should have thought she would have stuck at nothing.—But let me tell the whole story. What Miss Letty heard at the picnic was this: she heard Master Walter cursing Miss Rose. That was an odd thing for a young gentleman to do to a young lady—although, for that matter, I have no doubt she deserved it—was it not? Well, that was what Miss Letty thought. She had never heard such words before, and could scarcely force her innocent lips to repeat them; but I made her do it. And certainly Master Walter expressed himself pretty strong. It seems he was angered about the young woman's behaviour to his brother yesterday”——