MISS SUSANNAH CHRESSHAM OBSERVES
"You ask me about Rose—what can I say? Alas, that my talents should not be equal to your curiosity! My letters at best are feeble productions, and when I have a deliberate request to answer I swear my pen refuses its duty. 'Tell me about Rose,' you say. 'Our one meeting, two years ago, remains in my mind.' And you would know more of the most charming person you ever met—so I finish the sentence for you!
"And rightly, I am sure. But, again, what can I say? I know too much, and not enough.
"I have chosen a wet day to write to you and the afternoon hours when my duties are done, so that nothing interferes between us but my faltering pen. Aunt Agatha sits in the next room making knots. You see how I avoid the subject! And now how I valiantly strive faithfully to answer you.
"You say you have heard 'whispers and more than whispers in London.' You imply about Rose, and I cannot pretend not to understand.
"I, too, have been made aware (in what extraordinary fashion, more subtle than words, is scandal communicated!) of various rumours. Remember that I have not seen Rose since I was last in town, six months ago, and then only amid the distractions of a gay season. Laughter passed between us, little else. You will recall the charming laughter of Rose. My prayer is that its gaiety may never be quenched, as—ah!—I fear it may be. I must repeat—(here give me credit for a pause of earnest thought)—that I know nothing.
"If youth, beauty, race, talents, a fine name, the most winning manners, the sweetest temper, the lightest spirits are to be ruined by the common lures of the world, if ordinary vices are to tarnish a character so bright——
"But—no, I will not think it, nor must you. Remember Rose as all nobility, virtue, and discretion, the sweetest gentleman in England.
"Marius comes home to-night. His letters read full of a sparkling pleasure in the incidents of the tour. I fear he has not spared money; I dread the moment when he must be made aware how perilously near the limit of our fortunes we all live. Hideous subject! Even to you I shrink from putting the word on paper, but I anticipate that this lack of money will mean trouble for both Rose and Marius. The Lyndwoods were ever thriftless. I remember my sweet mother losing £300 at faro; the silk dress she wore, unpaid for, and my father having to sell the silver plate to pay her page and her carriage. I recall other scenes, but all taken with a smile on my mother's part—like Rose!