"Dear Prentiss, you must not say Mrs. Turner is not a lady. She has far more delicacy of feeling than many ladies," cried Mary.
"Yes, Miss Mary, dear, I allow that she is very nice to you; but who could help that? and to hear my lady's name—that might have her faults, but who was far above anything of the sort—in every mouth, and her costume, that they don't know how to describe, and to think that she would go and talk to the like of Betsy Barnes about what is on her mind! I think sometimes I shall break my, heart, or else throw up my place, Miss Mary," Prentiss said, with tears.
"Oh, don't do that; oh, don't leave me, Prentiss!" Mary said, with an involuntary cry of dismay.
"Not if you mind, not if you mind, dear," the housekeeper cried. And then she drew close to the young lady with an anxious look. "You haven't seen anything?" she said. "That would be only natural, Miss Mary. I could well understand she couldn't rest in her grave,—if she came and told it all to you."
"Prentiss, be silent," cried Mary; "that ends everything between you and me, if you say such a word. There has been too much said already,—oh, far too much! as if I only loved her for what she was to leave me."
"I did not mean that, dear," said Prentiss; "but—"
"There is no but; and everything she did was right," the girl cried with vehemence. She shed hot and bitter tears over this wrong which all her friends did to Lady Mary's memory. "I am glad it was so," she said to herself when she was alone, with youthful extravagance. "I am glad it was so; for now no one can think that I loved her for anything but herself."
The household, however, was agitated by all these rumors and inventions. Alice, Connie's elder sister, declined to sleep any longer in that which began to be called the haunted room. She, too, began to think she saw something, she could not tell what, gliding out of the room as it began to get dark, and to hear sighs and moans in the corridors. The servants, who all wanted to leave, and the villagers, who avoided the grounds after nightfall, spread the rumor far and near that the house was haunted.
XI.
In the meantime, Connie herself was silent, and saw no more of the lady. Her attachment to Mary grew into one of those visionary passions which little girls so often form for young women. She followed her so-called governess wherever she went, hanging upon her arm when she could, holding her dress when no other hold was possible,—following her everywhere, like her shadow. The vicarage, jealous and annoyed at first, and all the neighbors indignant too, to see Mary transformed into a dependent of the city family, held out as long as possible against the good-nature of Mrs. Turner, and were revolted by the spectacle of this child claiming poor Mary's attention wherever she moved. But by-and-by all these strong sentiments softened, as was natural. The only real drawback was, that amid all these agitations Mary lost her bloom. She began to droop and grow pale under the observation of the watchful doctor, who had never been otherwise than dissatisfied with the new position of affairs, and betook himself to Mrs. Bowyer for sympathy and information. "Did you ever see a girl so fallen off?" he said. "Fallen off, doctor! I think she is prettier and prettier every day." "Oh," the poor man cried, with a strong breathing of impatience, "You ladies think of nothing, but prettiness!—was I talking of prettiness? She must have lost a stone since she went back there. It is all very well to laugh," the doctor added, growing red with suppressed anger, "but I can tell you that is the true test. That little Connie Turner is as well as possible; she has handed over her nerves to Mary Vivian. I wonder now if she ever talks to you on that subject."