Miss Browning went to Mrs. Dawes' and began civilly enough to make
inquiries concerning the reports current in Hollingford about Molly
and Mr. Preston; and Mrs. Dawes fell into the snare, and told all the
real and fictitious circumstances of the story in circulation, quite
unaware of the storm that was gathering and ready to fall upon her
as soon as she stopped speaking. But she had not the long habit of
reverence for Miss Browning which would have kept so many Hollingford
ladies from justifying themselves if she found fault. Mrs. Dawes
stood up for herself and her own veracity, bringing out fresh
scandal, which she said she did not believe, but that many did; and
adducing so much evidence as to the truth of what she had said and
did believe, that Miss Browning was almost quelled, and sate silent
and miserable at the end of Mrs. Dawes' justification of herself.
"Well!" she said at length, rising up from her chair as she spoke,
"I'm very sorry I've lived till this day; it's a blow to me just as
if I had heard of such goings-on in my own flesh and blood. I suppose
I ought to apologize to you, Mrs. Dawes, for what I said; but I've
no heart to do it to-day. I ought not to have spoken as I did; but
that's nothing to this affair, you see."
"I hope you do me the justice to perceive that I only repeated what
I had heard on good authority, Miss Browning," said Mrs. Dawes in
reply.
"My dear, don't repeat evil on any authority unless you can do some
good by speaking about it," said Miss Browning, laying her hand on
Mrs. Dawes' shoulder. "I'm not a good woman, but I know what is good,
and that advice is. And now I think I can tell you that I beg your
pardon for flying out upon you so; but God knows what pain you were
putting me to. You'll forgive me, won't you, my dear?" Mrs. Dawes
felt the hand trembling on her shoulder, and saw the real distress of
Miss Browning's mind, so it was not difficult for her to grant the
requested forgiveness. Then Miss Browning went home, and said but a
few words to Phoebe, who indeed saw well enough that her sister had
heard the reports confirmed, and needed no further explanation of
the cause of scarcely-tasted dinner, and short replies, and saddened
looks. Presently Miss Browning sate down and wrote a short note. Then
she rang the bell, and told the little maiden who answered it to
take it to Mr. Gibson, and if he was out to see that it was given
to him as soon as ever he came home. And then she went and put on
her Sunday cap; and Miss Phoebe knew that her sister had written
to ask Mr. Gibson to come and be told of the rumours affecting his
daughter. Miss Browning was sadly disturbed at the information she
had received, and the task that lay before her; she was miserably
uncomfortable to herself and irritable to Miss Phoebe, and the
netting-cotton she was using kept continually snapping and breaking
from the jerks of her nervous hands. When the knock at the door was
heard,--the well-known doctor's knock,--Miss Browning took off her
spectacles, and dropped them on the carpet, breaking them as she
did so; and then she bade Miss Phoebe leave the room, as if her
presence had cast the evil-eye, and caused the misfortune. She wanted
to look natural, and was distressed at forgetting whether she usually
received him sitting or standing.