"Heighty-teighty! Miss Molly! don't you remember that I am old enough
to be your mother, and that it is not pretty behaviour to speak so to
us--to me! 'Chatter' to be sure. Really, Molly--"
"I beg your pardon," said Molly, only half-penitent.
"I daresay you did not mean to speak so to sister," said Miss
Phoebe, trying to make peace.
Molly did not answer all at once. She wanted to explain how much
mischief might be done by such reports.
"But don't you see," she went on, still flushed by vexation, "how
bad it is to talk of such things in such a way? Supposing one of
them cared for some one else, and that might happen, you know; Mr.
Preston, for instance, may be engaged to some one else?"
"Molly! I pity the woman! Indeed I do. I have a very poor opinion of
Mr. Preston," said Miss Browning, in a warning tone of voice; for a
new idea had come into her head.
"Well, but the woman, or young lady, would not like to hear such
reports about Mr. Preston."
"Perhaps not. But for all that, take my word for it, he's a great
flirt, and young ladies had better not have much to do with him."
"I daresay it was all accident their meeting in Heath Lane," said
Miss Phoebe.
"I know nothing about it," said Molly, "and I daresay I have been
impertinent, only please don't talk about it any more. I have my
reasons for asking you." She got up, for by the striking of the
church clock she had just found out that it was later than she had
thought, and she knew that her father would be at home by this time.
She bent down and kissed Miss Browning's grave and passive face.
"How you are growing, Molly!" said Miss Phoebe, anxious to cover
over her sister's displeasure. "'As tall and as straight as a
poplar-tree!' as the old song says."
"Grow in grace, Molly, as well as in good looks!" said Miss Browning,
watching her out of the room. As soon as she was fairly gone, Miss
Browning got up and shut the door quite securely, and then sitting
down near her sister, she said, in a low voice, "Phoebe, it was
Molly herself that was with Mr. Preston in Heath Lane that day when
Mrs. Goodenough saw them together!"
"Gracious goodness me!" exclaimed Miss Phoebe, receiving it at once
as gospel. "How do you know?"
"By putting two and two together. Didn't you notice how red Molly
went, and then pale, and how she said she knew for a fact that Mr.
Preston and Cynthia Kirkpatrick were not engaged?"