"Curiosity! what should there be in me to excite curiosity?"
"Curiosity is the daughter of admiration."
"I am a widow," she continued vehemently. "I lead a sequestered life. I visit nowhere. I receive no visits. Is it because I am a Roman Catholic that you are curious?"
"Do you take me for a missionary, Mrs. Fraser? I assure you I was ignorant of your faith. Of your habits I know only from the information of my housekeeper. A fellow-feeling makes us kind. I, too, am a recluse, loving solitude as well as yourself."
"Impossible!" she exclaimed impetuously, "or you would not have called here."
I could have told her that I loved beauty more than solitude. But I held my tongue.
"Where did you meet me?" she asked.
"I met you in the fields outside our respective grounds."
"Never!" she cried. "Never have I passed the gate that leads into those fields."