"What!" cried Mrs. Barkley. "Who has been talking nonsense to you? Some of the new people, I'll be bound."
Mrs. Smily, very much frightened, murmured that no doubt she was mistaken. Wild horses would not have drawn from her that she had heard Annie Shields that was, say that Dr. Lavendar had deliberately advised some one she knew to be bad; and that he had refused to help a very worthy man to study for the ministry; and that the Ferrises said he ought to be tried for heresy (or something) because he married Oscar King to their runaway niece; and that he would not give a child back to its repentant (and perfectly respectable) mother—"And a mother's claim is the holiest thing on earth," Mrs. Smily said—and that he had encouraged Miss Lydia Sampson in positively wicked extravagance. After hearing these things, Mrs. Smily had her opinion of Dr. Lavendar; but that was no reason why she should let Mrs. Barkley snap her head off. So she only murmured that no doubt she had made a mistake.
"I think you have," said Mrs. Barkley, dryly; and rose and marshalled her company in to supper. "She's a perfect fool," she told herself, "but I hope the Lord will give me grace to hold my tongue." Perhaps the Lord gave her too much grace, for, for the rest of the evening, she hardly spoke to Mrs. Smily; she even conversed with David rather than look in her direction.
For the most part the conversation was a polite exchange of views upon harmless topics between Mrs. Barkley and Mr. Spangler, during which Mrs. Smily cheered up and murmured small ejaculations to David Baily. She told him that she was scared nearly to death of the stuffed animals at Miss Harriet's house.
"They make me just scream!" she said.
David protectingly assured her that they were harmless.
"But they are so dreadful!" Mrs. Smily said. "Isn't it strange that my cousin likes to—to do that to animals? It isn't quite ladylike, to my mind."
Mr. Baily thought to himself how ladylike it was in Mrs. Smily to object to taxidermy. He noticed, too, that she ate almost nothing, which also seemed very refined. It occurred to him that such a delicate creature ought not to go home alone; the lane up to Miss Harriet's house was dark with overhanging trees, and, furthermore, half-way up the hill it passed the burial-ground. In a burst of fancy David saw himself near the low wall of the cemetery, protecting Mrs. Smily, who was shivering in her ladylike way at the old head-stones over in the grass. He began (in his own mind) a reassuring conversation: "There are no such things as spectres, ma'am. I assure you there is no occasion for fear." And at these manly words she would press closer to his side. (And this outside the burial-ground—oh, Maria, Maria!)
But this flight of imagination was not realized, for later Emily announced that Miss Harriet's Augustine had come for Mrs. Smily.
"Did she bring a lantern?" demanded Mrs. Barkley. "That lane is too dark except for young folks."