"He did not know that I was coming to London," Mary was quick to explain. "He thought I was still living in Keeton. I only came to London with Minola."
"Oh! You lived in Keeton then always, along with Miss Grey!"
"How delightful!" Lucy exclaimed, desisting from her occupation of opening books and turning over music; "for you can tell us all about Nola and her love story."
"Her love story?" Mrs. Money repeated, in tones of melancholy inquiry.
"Her love story!" Miss Blanchet murmured tremulously, and wondering who had betrayed Minola's secret.
"Oh, yes," said Lucy decisively. "I know there's some love story—something romantic and delightful. Do tell us, Miss Blanchet."
Even the saint-like Theresa now showed a mild and becoming interest.
"It's not exactly a love story," Miss Blanchet said with some hesitation, not well knowing what she ought to reveal and what to keep back. "At least it's no love affair on Minola's part. She never was in love—never. She detests all love-making—at least she thinks so," the poetess said with a gentle sigh. "But there was a gentleman who was very much in love with her."
"Oh, she must have had heaps of lovers!" interposed Lucy.
Miss Blanchet then told the story of Mr. Augustus Sheppard, and how he was rich and handsome—at least rather handsome, she said—and how he wanted to marry Minola; and her people very much wished that she would have him, and she would not; and how at last she hastened her flight to London to get rid of him. All this was full of delightful interest to Lucy, and still further quickened the kindly sympathy of Mrs. Money. Then Mary Blanchet went into a long story about the death of Minola's mother and the second marriage of Minola's father, and then the father's death and the stepmother's second marriage, and the discomfort of the home which fate had thus provided for Minola. She expatiated upon the happiness of the sheltered life Minola had had while her mother was living, and the change that came upon her afterward, until the only doubt Mrs. Money had ever entertained about Minola—a doubt as to the perfect propriety and judgment of her coming to live almost alone in London—vanished altogether, and she regarded our heroine as a girl who had been driven from her home instead of having fled from it.