"Why do girls do foolish things?" returned Mrs. Copp. "To show her respect for him, I suppose."
"A funny way of showing it!" cried Mrs. Macpherson. "Robert Hunter is doing very well where he's gone."
Mrs. Copp turned her eyes on the professor's wife with a prolonged stare.
"It is to be hoped he is, ma'am," she retorted, emphatically.
"He is doing so well that his coming back and marrying her wouldn't surprise me in the least. The Thornycrofts won't have no need to set up their backs again him if he can show he is in the way of making his fortune."
"Why, who are you talking of?" asked Mrs. Copp, after a pause and another gaze.
"Of Robert Hunter. He has gone and left us. Perhaps you did not know it, ma'am?"
"Yes, I did," said Mrs. Copp, with increased emphasis. "Coastdown has too good cause to know it, unfortunately."
This remark caused Mrs. Macpherson to become meek again. "I had a note from him this week," she observed. "It come in a letter to the prefessor: he sent it me up from his laborory."
The corners of Anna's mouth were gradually lengthening, almost--she could not help the feeling--in a sort of fear. It must be remembered that she knew nothing of the fact that it was not Robert Hunter who had died.