Bessie felt rather than saw the questioning eyes which her aunt flashed upon her, and her face was scarlet as she answered:
"Yes, I saw Miss Grey. She was very kind to me when I was sick. She did go directly to Boston."
"What is the matter with Mrs. Jerrold?" Miss Betsey asked, and Mrs. Browne replied:
"The land only knows. Heart complaint, the last report, I believe. I saw Hannah at the depot this morning; she'd been sent for, too. Geraldine always wants her when she's sick; but the minit she is better, the old maid sister is in the way, and not good enough for my lady's fine friends. I know Geraldine Jerrold pretty well, and if I's Hannah I wouldn't run to every beck and call, when nothing under the sun ails her but hypo. She has had everything, I do believe—malary, cancers, spinal cords, nervous prostration, and now it's her heart. Humbug! More like hysterics. Burton Jerrold has got his hands full, and I pity him. Why, he looks like an old, broken-down man, and his hair is as white as snow."
Here Mrs. Browne, who had the conversation all to herself, stopped to take breath. She was not an ill-natured woman, or one who often talked of her neighbors, and after a moment, as if ashamed of her tirade, she said:
"I've went it pretty glib against poor Miss Jerrold, hain't I? I dare say she is sick and nervous, and I have not charity enough for her." Then, rising from her chair preparatory to leaving, she said to Bessie: "I am glad you have come, and I hope we shall see you often, after Gusty comes home. I s'pose I shall lose her in October. 'Tain't no secret now, and so I may as well tell you that she is to be married to Lord Hardy, from Dublin. You've seen him, I b'lieve?"
"Yes, when I was a little girl," Bessie answered, with a pang of pain as she remembered the days when Lord Hardy was their constant companion.
"I never really b'lieved he wanted Gusty," Mrs. Browne continued, "till he said so in plain words; and there's folks now mean enough to say it's her money he's after, and I don't myself suppose he'd thought of her if she hadn't had money; but I think he likes her, and I know she likes him, and it's something to be Lady Hardy."
As she said this, Mrs. Browne drew herself up rather loftily, as if some of her daughter's honor had fallen upon her; and with a stately bow and good-afternoon, went out to where her handsome carriage and high-booted driver were waiting for her.
"There goes as nice a woman as ever lived made over into a fool by money and a little nincompoop of a lord," was Miss Betsey's comment, as she watched the carriage moving away across the common. Then turning suddenly to Bessie, she added: "Why didn't you tell me Miss Lucy was on the ship with Grey?"