"You will come again?" she said, that evening as they parted. "Fate has been kinder to me than I deserve, and sent me a sweet consoler. You and I have nothing to do with the idle forms of society. We meet each other, and that is quite enough."
"I will come again, kind friend," Clemence answered gratefully, "at an early day; for now that I have once enjoyed the pleasure of your society, it would be hard to deny myself the privilege in future."
After that they met nearly every day.
Mrs. Wynn had her say about it, too.
"So you've made the acquaintance of that stuck-up widow, have you? I've a piece of advice for you. You're an unprotected girl, and might easily get talked about. There's something queer about this Mis' Hardyng. She don't mingle with the rest of us, and I wouldn't be too thick with her, if I was in your place. Leastways, I won't let my Rose make any advances towards an acquaintance. Mind, I don't say anything against her, but I do as I'd be done by, and give you a friendly warning, such as I'd have anybody do by a child of mine, if they was around the world. For my part, I always consider it a safe plan to wait and see what other people think about them, before I make up to anybody myself. 'Taint expected that a woman that's got a character to lose should commit herself in the eyes of the world. Remember, too, that on account of your being in a public capacity, so to speak, you'd ought to be more particular about your morals. It's expected that you will do your best to set a good example to the rest of the young folks round here; not, of course, that I would say anything, whatever you might do, but then, everybody ain't so careful of the 'unruly member,' as the minister calls it. You know people will talk. For instance, Miss Pryor dropped in here a few minutes yesterday, and while we was taking a sociable cup of tea together, she told me that Mis' Parsons told Caleb Sharp, and he told her, that you looked a little too sanctimonious to have it natural, and she meant to keep her eyes on you, for all you seemed so wrapped up in your own affairs. They think you feel pretty big, I guess, for Miss Pryor said she wasn't agoing to wait to be put down by you, but took particular pains to flounce past you, with her head turned the other way, and never pretending to know you was there. Mind, though, you don't say anything to anybody about it. I am one of that kind that don't believe in making mischief, and if there's anything I do dispise, its tattling about my neighbors. It's a thing I never do, to talk against folks behind their back. There's plenty that do, though, in this very town. Now, there's that Mis' Swan, where you're going to board next week, she's been pretty well talked about, first and last, and they do say not without cause, for you know the sayin' about there always bein' some fire where there's any smoke. She makes believe all innocence, but I could tell some things that I've seen with these two eyes, if I choose.
"The last teacher we had before you came, was a single young gentleman by the name of Sweet. He was a nice, fine-looking man, with a real innocent face, and pleasant ways, and I took quite a motherly interest in him. He used to be at the Swans' very often, and I had a few suspicions of my own. I used to send Rose in, kind of sudden like, whenever I see him go by to their house. Mis' Swan felt guilty, for she knew what I meant; but, will you believe, the malicious creature actually insinuated that I had designs on him, and positively had the impudence to send me a saucy message, one day, by Rose, right before her husband and that young Sweet. I was so mad that I published the whole affair over the place within twenty-four hours. I put on my bonnet, and went in one direction, and sent Rose in another, and Mis' Swan found herself in a pretty mess, with her name on everybody's lips. But, will you believe in the ingratitude of human nature, the woman's own husband called me a meddlesome old busy-body, after I had solemnly warned him of his wife's unfaithfulness, and I was made the laughing stock of the town where I was born, and have lived a long and useful life. Nobody can tell me anything to convince me that my suspicions wasn't correct, and it went to my heart to have them say that I did it all out of spite, because I wanted to secure the school-master for my daughter. But I've lived it down, though, and have shown some people about here, that I consider them as far beneath me, as the heavens are above the earth."
Clemence found the Swan's a little homespun couple, but, on the whole, much more endurable than Mrs. Wynn and Rose.
"I suppose you have heard all about Kate's outrageous proceedings from our elderly friend?" laughed Mr. Swan, at the tea-table. "Poor Mrs. Wynn. She laid me under infinite obligations, by her efforts on my behalf, so much so, that sometimes the load of gratitude fairly oppresses me. In case matters had turned out as she feared, though, I might eventually have consoled myself with the fair Miss Rose's agreeable society."
"There, there, Harry!" said his wife, "don't say anything to prejudice Miss Graystone against them. I have forgiven her long ago, and I only hope that Rose may succeed in obtaining half as good a husband as somebody I know of."
"Well," he said, bestowing a fond glance upon the bright face beside him, "we won't say anything against them. By the way, Kitty, I received a letter to-day from Sweet, and he announces the advent of another juvenile Sweet-ness, to be named in honor of your ladyship. You see, Miss Graystone, he is a relative, having married a cousin of my wife's. There was some trouble about the match, for Uncle Eben objected to the young man, on account of his being a schoolteacher, He used to come to Kate for advice, and being rather a favorite with uncle, she finally succeeded in reconciling him to the marriage. The young couple naturally think her 'but little lower than the angels,' since her efforts in their behalf, and I never saw Sweet so indignant at anybody in my life as he was at the Wynns, for starting that infamous story. But I told him not to mind, it would blow over, and it did. Mrs. Wynn is pretty well known here, and like the rest of us, I suppose, has her good traits and her bad ones."