“So late! Is it possible? You’ve been so agreeable girls I had quite forgotten the hour, and my husband is waiting for me, I suppose,” and off she hurried.
“She has had all the talk,” said Emma, “and that’s what she calls finding us agreeable. But this story is very bad, if it is true.”
“Yes, but I don’t believe half of it,” said Charlotte. “Mrs. Grayson you know always puts the worst construction upon every thing. She is so very harsh in her judgments.”
“And she of all others should have mercy upon those in trouble,” observed Mrs. Appleton, who had just then came into the room. “But what were you talking of girls?”
And with great animation they related Mrs. Grayson’s bit of gossip to their mother.
“Strange!” said Mrs. Appleton, “that Mrs. Grayson should be the first to tell it.”
“Why, mamma?” asked both daughters at once.
“Because just such an affair occurred in her own family.”
“In hers! When?” exclaimed they in astonishment. “I never heard that before!”
“Oh, years ago—you can hardly remember it. Indeed it was just after I was married.”