Her keen eyes gleamed at her visitor through her spectacles, though her fingers never stopped for a moment.
"I hope not. I've heard nothing."
"My experience of men," said Lady Belstone, "is that they never do hear anything. But a widow cannot be too cautious in her behaviour. All eyes are fixed, I know not why, upon a widow," she added modestly.
"We do our best to guard dear Mary's reputation," said Miss Crewys.
The impetuous canon sprang to his feet with a half-uttered exclamation; then recollecting the age and temperament of the speaker, he checked himself and tried to laugh.
"I do not know," he said, "who has said, or ever could say, one single word against that—against our dear and sweet Lady Mary. But if there is any one, I can only say that such word had better not be uttered in my presence, that's all."
"Dear me, Canon Birch, you excite yourself very unnecessarily," said Lady Belstone, with assumed surprise. "You are just confirming our suspicions."
"What suspicions?" almost shouted the canon,
"That our dear Lady Mary's extraordinary partiality for our cousin
John has not escaped the observation of a censorious world."
"Though we have done our best never to leave him alone with her for a single moment," interpolated Miss Crewys.