"And it's left hanging?"
"It's left hanging. Ah!"--and Honour drew a long breath--"Nurse Dade, we have changes here."
"There's changes everywhere, I think," responded the nurse. "But I must say I was surprised when I read it in the papers. So soon! and to recollect what his grief was then! But law! it's the way of the world."
Honour took Benja, carried him to the far end of the room, and began amusing him with his horse. They made a considerable amount of noise, almost drowning the voices of the two women by the fire.
"Do you happen to know her?" the housekeeper had asked, and the nurse knew by intuition that she spoke of the bride.
"I've known her ever since she was a baby. My mother was nursing at Norris Court, and I went there for a day and a night, and they let me hold the baby on my lap, to say I had had it. I was quite a young woman then; a growing girl, as one may say."
"I don't know anything of her, hardly," said the housekeeper. "I've not chosen to ask questions of the servants, and I and Honour, as you are aware, are strangers in the neighbourhood. Her father was a colonel, was he not?"
"A colonel! No; it was Mrs. Norris's second husband that was a colonel--Colonel Darling. Miss Norris's father was Mr. Norris of Norris Court. Very grand, rich people they were: but as there was no boy, it nearly all went from the widow when Mr. Norris died. She married Colonel Darling when the first year was out."
"She must have been very young," remarked the housekeeper. "She does not look old now."
"Very young. I remember the first time I saw her in her widow's cap. I began wondering how I should look in a widow's cap, for she did not look much older than I was. She was very pretty. People said what a pity it was Mr. Norris should have died so soon and left her."