“Oh, indeed! You asked Mr. Wyvil about her family, of course? What did he say?”
“He said she lost her mother when she was a child—and he told me her father had died suddenly, a few years since, of heart complaint.”
“Well, and what else?—Never mind now! Here is somebody coming.”
The person was only one of the servants. Mirabel felt grateful to the man for interrupting them. Animated by sentiments of a precisely opposite nature, Francine spoke to him sharply.
“What do you want here?”
“A message, miss.”
“From whom?”
“From Miss Brown.”
“For me?”
“No, miss.” He turned to Mirabel. “Miss Brown wishes to speak to you, sir, if you are not engaged.”