Anne started.
“Has he come from Mrs. Catherine?”
“If ye please, Miss Anne, Mrs. Catherine’s at Miss Crankie’s.”
Anne rose immediately, and proceeded up the lane to Miss Crankie’s house. Mrs. Catherine’s carriage stood at the door. Mrs. Catherine herself was in the parlor, where Miss Crankie stood in deferential conversation with her—keenly observant of all the particulars of her plain, rich dress and stately appearance, and silently exulting over the carriage at the door—the well-appointed, wealthy carriage, which all the neighborhood could see.
“Anne!” exclaimed Mrs. Catherine, as Anne in her deep mourning dress entered the room. “What is the matter?”
Miss Crankie sensibly withdrew.
“He is dead, Mrs. Catherine,” said Anne.
“Who is dead? Who is this lad?”
“The brother of Marion—the brother of Norman’s wife.”
“Anne,” said Mrs. Catherine, “you have not dealt ingenuously and frankly with me in this matter. Who is this lad, I ask you? Have you a certainty that Norman’s wife was his sister, that you are thus mourning for a fremd man?”