"No, I haven't heard any so far as I remember," was her reply.
Emma gave the visitor a chair, and retreated with her books to a corner behind her mother, in the hope that she might not be sent away. She knew something had happened.
"Then you don't know that Mr. Morrison has turned out to be our Mr. Jack, Miss Frances' nephew?"
"Who is her nephew, did you say?" asked Mrs. Bond, going on with her work.
"Mr. Morrison, to be sure, the father of little Frances, bless her!"
"He is Mrs. Marvin's nephew?"
"Yes," said Caroline, laughing; "only she isn't Mrs. Marvin at all, but Mrs. Richards. It is as good as a play."
Mrs. Bond actually dropped her hands in her lap, as she asked, "Do you mean there isn't any such person as Mrs. Marvin?"
"Of course there is a Mrs. Marvin. She was staying at our house while Miss Frances was abroad,—she is her cousin,—and the first sewing you did was for her. I did not think of explaining, so you went on supposing it was all for Mrs. Marvin. Then when Miss Frances found out that Frances thought she was Mrs. Marvin, she asked me not to tell you any different. I couldn't understand why, then."
"Why should she care who I thought she was?" Mrs. Bond asked, taking up her sewing.