"Then there was an attachment between him and Mary Anne Thornycroft!" exclaimed Mrs. Copp, in a tone of triumph. "Didn't I tell you so, Anna? You need not have been so close about it."
"I do not know that there was," replied Anna "Mary Anne never spoke of it to me."
"Rubbish to speaking of it," said Mrs. Copp. "You didn't speak about you and Mr. Isaac." Anna bent her head in silence.
"And was there a blow-up with her folks?" inquired Mrs. Macpherson, not quite courageously yet. "Miss Jupp! you remember--I come right off to you with my suspicions at the first moment I had 'em--which was only a day or so before she went home."
"I don't know about that; there might have been or there might not," replied Mrs. Copp, alluding to the question of the "blow-up." "But I have got my eyes about me, and I can see how she grieved after him. Why, if there had been nothing between them, why did she put on mourning?" demanded the captain's mother, looking at the assembled company one by one.
"She put it on for Lady Ellis," said Anna.
"Oh, did she, though! Sarah told me that that mourning was on her back before ever Lady Ellis died. I tell you, I tell you also, ladies, she put on the black for Robert Hunter."
"Who put on black for him?" questioned Mrs. Macpherson, in a puzzle.
"Mary Anne Thornycroft."
"I never heard of such a thing! What did she do that for?"