“Well, really!” said little Mrs. Sedgwick, bridling with offended virtue, “I don’t think I am very hard upon a little innocent flirting—sometimes, you know, there’s no harm in it—and young people will amuse themselves; but really, Mrs. Crofton, that Miss Reredos is quite ridiculous. I do wonder for my part how men can be so taken in!—and our Maurice who is so clever!—and she is not even pretty—if she had been pretty one could have understood.”

“My dear Clara,” said I, “perhaps it is not very complimentary to your brother, but I do think the most sensible thing Maurice could do would be to fall in love. I don’t say of course with Miss Reredos; but then, you see, we can’t choose the person. If he fell desperately in love and made a fool of himself, I am sure I should not think any worse of him, and it would do him no harm.”

Both the sisters drew up their shoulders a little, and communicated between each other a telegraphic glance of displeasure. Between themselves they could be hard enough upon Maurice, but, after the use of kinsfolk, could not bear the touch of a stranger.

“Really, I cannot say I should be very grateful to Maurice for such a sister-in-law,” said Clara, with a toss of her head.

“I don’t think there is very much to fear,” said Miss Polly. “Do you know what little Derwie told me yesterday? He said a poor woman in the village had three or four children ill with the hooping-cough—at least so I understood the child from the sound he made to show me what it was. Now, I really think if I were you, Clare, I would not let that child wander so much about the village. Neither Di nor Emmy has ever had hooping-cough, and I shall be almost frightened to let them go out of doors.”

“Oh, I assure you it’s nothing, Miss Polly!” cried Clara—“mine had it two years ago—even the baby—and took their walks just the same in all weathers; and they must have it one time or other, you know—and such great girls as your two nieces! Our children all got over it perfectly well. Though Hugh says I am ridiculously timid, I never was the least afraid. Their chests were rubbed every night, and they had something which Hugh said it was polite to call medicine. Oh, I assure you there’s nothing to be at all afraid of! especially at this time of the year.”

“I daresay that’s very true, my dear,” said Miss Polly, who took little Clara’s nursery instructions and assurances in very good part, “but it isn’t always so. There’s my poor little nephew, little Willoughby—dear, dear! to think what a strong man his father is, and how delicate that poor child looks! I can’t help thinking sometimes it must be his mother’s fault; though to be sure they have the best of nurses, and Lady Greenfield can’t be expected to make a slave of herself; that poor dear little soul was very ill with the hooping-cough. Clara—all children are not so fortunate as your pretty darlings; and that reminds me, Clare, that you have never seen Elinor’s letter yet; she mentions her nephew in it, as I think I told you; so, though it’s almost all about Emmy, my dear children’s mother, if you’ll wait a minute I’ll just bring it down.”

Saying which Miss Polly left the room. Alice sat rather stiffly at her work and looked very busy—so very busy that I was suspicious of some small gleam of interest on her part touching the contents of Lady Greenfield’s letter.

“Miss Polly does not love Lady Greenfield too much,” said Clara, laughing; “but,” she added, with a little flush of angry anticipation, “it’s nothing to laugh at after all. Suppose Maurice were to marry Miss Reredos! Oh, Mrs. Crofton, isn’t it shocking of you to put such dreadful thoughts in one’s head! Fancy, Alice! and to settle down hereabout—to be near us!—I am sure I could never be civil to her: and what do you suppose mamma would say?”

“Maurice has nothing but his fellowship,” said Alice.

“Well, to be sure, that is some comfort,” said Clara; “but then I daresay he might get a living if he tried, and Hugh could even”——

Here Miss Polly came in with her letter, so we did not hear at that moment what could be done by Hugh, who, in the eyes of his little wife, was happily a person all-powerful.

“My dear,” said Miss Polly, laying down the letter in her lap, and making a little preliminary lecture in explanation, “you remember that Emmy, my niece, two years ago, married again. Well, you know, one couldn’t well blame her. She was only one and twenty, poor little soul, when she was left with these two children; and I was but too glad to keep the little girls with me, so she was quite what people call without encumbrance, you see. So she married that curate whom she had met at Fenosier. Well, it’s no use disguising it—Lady Greenfield and I are perhaps not such great friends as we ought to be, and Emmy has a temper of her own, and is just the weak-minded sort of little soul that will worry herself to death over those slights and annoyances that good near neighbors can do to each other—she ought to know better, after all she’s gone through. So here’s a letter from Elinor, telling me, of course, she’s as innocent as the day, and knows nothing about it—and so sorry for poor dear little Emmy—and so good and sweet-tempered herself, that really, if I were as near to her as Emmy is, I do believe I should do her a mischief. There’s the letter, Clare; you can read that part about Bertie out aloud if you please—perhaps the girls might like to hear it.”

With which, shaking off a little heat of exasperation which had gathered about her, Miss Polly resumed her usual work and placidity. I confess it was not without a smile I read Lady Greenfield’s letter. I fortunately was under no temptations of the kind myself. If I had been, I daresay, I should have turned out exactly like my neighbors; but the spectators of a domestic squabble or successful piece of neighborly oppression and tyranny always see the ludicrous side of it, and I could understand my lady’s mild malice and certainty of not being to blame, so well. It appeared that the poor little Emmy, completely overpowered by Lady Greenfield’s neighborly attentions, had in her turn worried her curate, and that the result of their united efforts was the withdrawal of the young clergyman, who did not feel himself able to cope with my lady at the Hall and his own exasperated little wife in the cottage, which unlooked-for result Lady Greenfield took the earliest opportunity of communicating to her dear Polly, with condolences over Emmy’s want of spirit and weak propensity, poor child!—to see neglect and slight where nothing of the kind was meant. I was so long getting over this, that, having heard from him recently myself, I did not make the haste I might have done to read what Lady Greenfield had to say about Bertie. I was reminded of this by seeing suddenly over the top of the letter a slight, quick movement made by Alice. It was only the most common change of position—nothing could be more natural; but there was a certain indescribable something of impatience and suspense in it which I comprehended by a sudden instinct. I stumbled immediately down to the paragraph about Bertie:

“Pray tell Clare Crofton,” wrote Lady Greenfield, “in case she should not have heard from Bertie lately—which is very likely, for young men I know don’t always keep up their correspondences as they ought, especially with elderly female relations, like dear Clare and myself—that I had a letter from my nephew by the last mail. He has not done yet lamenting that he could not get home and go to the Crimea, but says his old brigadier is suspicious of the Native army, and prophesies that there will be some commotion among them, which Bertie thinks will be great fun, and that a thorough cutting down would do these pampered fellows all the good in the world: so he says, you know, as boys will talk—but the Company’s officers laugh at the idea. If all keeps quiet, Bertie says he is rather sick of India—he thinks he will come back and see his friends: he thinks perhaps his dear cousin Clare has somebody in her pocket whom she means him to marry. To be sure, after giving him Estcourt, it would be only right that she should have a vote in the choice of his wife. Such a great matter, you know, for a boy like Bertie, his father’s fourth son, to come into a pretty little property like Estcourt—and so good of dear Clare!—pray tell her, with my love.”

Not having taken the precaution to glance over this, as I ought to have done from my previous acquaintance with “dear” Elinor, I had stumbled into the middle of that statement about the somebody whom cousin Clare had in her pocket before I was aware; and after an awkward pause, felt constrained to proceed. I thought the malice of the epistle altogether would defeat itself, and went on accordingly to the end of the sentence. Then I folded up the letter and gave it to Miss Polly.

“I wonder does Lady Greenfield mean to make me so thoroughly uncomfortable when Bertie comes home that I shall not let him come here at all,” said I; “or to terrify me out of the possibility of introducing him to anybody, lest I should be said to be influencing his choice? But indeed she need not take the trouble. I know Bertie, and Bertie knows me much too well for the success of any such attempt. I will not have my liberty infringed upon, I assure you, Miss Polly, not by half a dozen Lady Greenfields.”

“My dear, you don’t suppose me an accessory?” said Miss Polly, with a little spirit. “Did any one ever see such a wanton mischief-maker? I think she takes quite a delight in setting people by the ears. If Bertie ever did say such a thing, Clare,” said Miss Polly, with a little vehemence, “about somebody in your pocket, you know, I could swear it was Elinor, and nobody else, who put it into his head.”

By the merest inadvertence I am sure, certainly not by any evil intention, Miss Polly, as she delivered these words, allowed her mild old glances to stray towards Alice. I at the same moment chanced to give a furtive look in the same direction. Of course, just at the instant of danger, Alice, who had been immovable hitherto, suddenly looked up and detected us both. I do not know what meanings of which they were innocent her sensitive pride discovered in our eyes, but she sprang up with an impatience and mortification quite irrestrainable, her very neck growing crimson as she turned her head out of my sight. I understood well enough that burning blush of shame, and indignation, and wounded pride; it was not the blush of a love-sick girl, and my heart quaked when it occurred to me that Lady Greenfield might possibly have done a more subtle act of mischief by her letter than even she intended. Whom was I so likely to have in my pocket as Alice Harley? Indeed, was not she aware by intuition of some such secret desire in my mind? And suppose Bertie were coming home with tender thoughts towards the friend of his boyhood, and perhaps a little tender pleasant wonder, full of suggestions, why Alice Harley, and she alone, out of her immediate companions, should remain unmarried—what good would that laudable, and much-to-be-desired frame of mind do to the poor boy now? If he came to Hilfont this very night, the most passionate lover, did not I know that Alice would reject him much more vehemently than she had rejected the Rector—scornfully, because conscious of the secret inclination towards him, which, alas! lay treacherous at the bottom of her heart? Oh, Lady Greenfield! Oh, dearest of “dear” Elinors! if you had anywhere two most sincere well-wishers, they were surely Miss Polly and myself!