"Bless me!" cried Vizard. "G.o.diva _rediviva."_

"Now, Harrington, don't! Of course, I mean nothing to spoil; only her purple alpaca, and that is two years old. But my blue silk, I can't afford to ruin _it._ n.o.body would give me another, _I_ know."

"What a heartless world!" said Vizard dryly.

"It is past a jest, the whole thing," objected Miss Maitland; "and, now we are together, please tell me, if you can, either of you, who is this man? What are his means? I know 'The Peerage,' 'The Baronetage,' and 'The Landed Gentry,' but not Severne. That is a river, not a family."

"Oh," said Vizard, "family names taken from rivers are never _parvenues._ But we can't all be down in Burke. Ned is of a good stock, the old English yeoman, the country's pride."

"Yeoman!" said the Maitland, with sovereign contempt.

Vizard resisted. "Is this the place to sneer at an English yeoman, where you see an unprincely prince living by a gambling-table? What says the old stave?

"'A German prince, a marquis of France, And a laird o' the North Countrie; A yeoman o' Kent, with his yearly rent, Would ding 'em out, all three."'

"Then," said Misander, with a good deal of malicious, intent, "you are quite sure your yeoman is not a--_pauper--_an _adventurer--"_

"Positive."

"And a _gambler."_

"No; I am not at all sure of that. But n.o.body is all-wise. I am not, for one. He is a fine fellow; as good as gold; as true as steel. Always polite, always genial; and never speaks ill of any of you behind your backs."

Miss Maitland bridled at that. "What I have said is not out of dislike to the young man. I am warning a brother to take a little more care of his sister, that is all. However, after your sneer, I shall say no more behind Mr. Severne's back, but to his face--that is, if we ever see his face again, or Zoe's either."

"Oh, aunt!" said f.a.n.n.y, reproachfully. "It is only the rain. La! poor things, they will be wet to the skin. Just see how it is pouring!"

"That it is: and let me tell you there is nothing so dangerous as a _te'te-'a-te'te_ in the rain."

"A thunder-storm is worse, aunt," said f.a.n.n.y, eagerly; "because then she is frightened to death, and clings to him--_if he is nice."_

Having galloped into this revelation, through speaking first and thinking afterward, f.a.n.n.y pulled up short the moment the words were out, and turned red, and looked askant, under her pale lashes at Vizard. Observing several twinkles in his eyes, she got up hastily and said she really must go and dry her gown.

"Yes," said Miss Maitland; "come into my room, dear."

f.a.n.n.y complied, with rather a rueful face, not doubting that the public "dear" was to get it rather hot in private.

Her uneasiness was not lessened when the old maid said to her, grimly, "Now, sit you down there, and never mind your dress."

However, it came rather mildly, after all. "f.a.n.n.y, you are not a bad girl, and you have shown you were sorry; so I am not going to be hard on you: only you must be a good girl now, and help me to undo the mischief, and then I will forgive you."

"Aunt," said f.a.n.n.y, piteously, "I am older than she is, and I know I have done rather wrong, and I won't do it any more; but pray, pray, don't ask me to be unkind to her to-day; it is brooch-day."

Miss Maitland only stared at this obscure announcement: so f.a.n.n.y had to explain that Zoe and she had tiffed, and made it up, and Zoe had given her a brooch. Hereupon she went for it, and both ladies forgot the topic they were on, and every other, to examine the brooch.

"Aunt," says f.a.n.n.y, handling the brooch, and eyeing it, "you were a poor girl, like me, before grandpapa left you the money, and you know it is just as well to have a tiff now and then with a rich one, because, when you kiss and make it up, you always get some reconciliation-thing or other."

Miss Maitland dived into the past and nodded approval.

Thus encouraged, f.a.n.n.y proceeded to more modern rules. She let Miss Maitland know it was always understood at her school that on these occasions of tiff, reconciliation, and present, the girl who received the present was to side in everything with the girl who gave it, for that one day. "That is the real reason I put on my tight boots--to earn my brooch.

Isn't it a duck?"

_"Are_ they tight, then?"

"Awfully. See--new on to-day."

"But you could shake off your lameness in a moment."

"La, aunt, you know one can fight _with_ that sort of thing, or fight _against_ it. It is like colds, and headaches, and fevers, and all that.

You are in bed, too ill to see anybody you don't much care for. Night comes, and then you jump up and dress, and go to a ball, and leave your cold and your fever behind you, because the ball won't wait till you are well, and the bores will. So don't ask me to be unkind to Zoe, brooch-day," said f.a.n.n.y, skipping back to her first position with singular pertinacity.

"Now, f.a.n.n.y," said Miss Maitland, "who wants you to be unkind to her? But you must and shall promise me not to lend her any more downright encouragement, and to watch the man well."

"I promise that faithfully," said f.a.n.n.y--an adroit concession, since she had been watching him like a cat a mouse for many days.

"Then you are a good girl; and, to reward you, I will tell you in confidence all the strange stories I have discovered today."

"Oh, do, aunt!" cried f.a.n.n.y; and now her eyes began to sparkle with curiosity.

Miss Maitland then bid her observe that the bedroom window was not a French cas.e.m.e.nt, but a double-sash window--closed at present because of the rain; but it had been wide open at the top all the time.

"Those two were smoking, and talking secrets; and, child," said the old lady, very impressively, "if you--want--to--know--what gentlemen really are, you must be out of sight, and listen to them, smoking. When I was a girl, the gentlemen came out in their true colors over their wine. Now they are as close as wax, drinking; and even when they are tipsy they keep their secrets. But once let them get by themselves and smoke, the very air is soon filled with scandalous secrets none of the ladies in the house ever dreamed of. Their real characters, their true histories, and their genuine sentiments, are locked up like that genius in 'The Arabian Nights,' and come out in smoke as he did." The old lady chuckled at her own wit, and the young one laughed to humor her. "Well, my dear, those two smoked, and revealed themselves--their real selves; and I listened and heard every word on the top of those drawers."

f.a.n.n.y looked at the drawers. They were high.

"La, aunt! how ever did you get up there?"

"By a chair."

"Oh, fancy you perched up there, listening, at your age!"

"You need not keep throwing my age in my teeth. I am not so very old.

Only I don't paint and whiten and wear false hair. There are plenty of coquettes about, ever so much older than I am. I have a great mind not to tell you; and then much you will ever know about either of these men!"

"Oh, aunt, don't be cruel! I am dying to hear it."

As aunt was equally dying to tell it, she pa.s.sed over the skit upon her age, though she did not forget nor forgive it; and repeated the whole conversation of Vizard and Severne with rare fidelity; but as I abhor what the evangelist calls "battology," and Shakespeare "d.a.m.nable iteration," I must draw upon the intelligence of the reader (if any), and he must be pleased to imagine the whole dialogue of those two unguarded smokers repeated to f.a.n.n.y, and interrupted, commented on at every salient point, scrutinized, sifted, dissected, and taken to pieces by two keen women, sharp by nature, and sharper now by collision of their heads. No candor, no tolerance, no allowance for human weakness, blunted the scalpel in their dexterous hands.

Oh, Gossip! delight of ordinary souls, and more delightful still when you furnish food for detraction!

To f.a.n.n.y, in particular, it was exciting, ravishing, and the time flew by so unheeded that presently there came a sharp knock and an impatient voice cried, "Chatter! chatter! chatter! How long are we to be kept waiting for dinner, all of us?"

CHAPTER VI.

AT the very commencement of the confabulation, so barbarously interrupted before it had lasted two hours and a half, the Misogyn rang the bell, and asked for Rosa, Zoe's maid.