Miss More listened attentively, and waited till her large and sleek interlocutor had absolutely nothing more to say.  Then she spoke.

‘Mrs. Dubbs,’ she said, ’do you consider me a respectable young woman?’

‘Oh, Miss More!’ cried the housekeeper.  ’You!  Indeed, I’d put my hand into the fire for you any day!’

’And I’m an American, and I’ve known Mr. Van Torp several years, though this is the first time you have seen me here.  Do you think I would let the child stay an hour under his roof, or stay here myself, if I believed one word of all those wicked stories the papers are publishing?  Look at me, please.  Do you think I would?’

It was quite impossible to look at Miss More’s quiet healthy face and clear eyes and to believe she would.  There are some women of whom one is sure at a glance that they are perfectly trustworthy in every imaginable way, and above even the suspicion of countenancing any wrong.

‘No,’ answered Mrs. Dubbs, with honest conviction, ‘I don’t, indeed.’

‘I think, then,’ said Miss More, ’that if I feel I can stay here, you are safe in staying too.  I do not believe any of these slanders, and I am quite sure that Mr. Van Torp is one of the kindest men in the world.’

‘I feel as if you must be right, Miss More,’ replied the housekeeper.  ’But they do say dreadful things about him, indeed, and he doesn’t deny a word of it, as he ought to, in my humble opinion, though it’s not my business to judge, of course, but I’ll say this, Miss More, and that is, that if the butler’s character was publicly attacked in the papers, in the way Mr. Van Torp’s is, and if I were Mr. Van Torp, which of course I’m not, I’d say “Crookes, you may be all right, but if you’re going to be butler here any longer, it’s your duty to defend yourself against these attacks upon you in the papers, Crookes, because as a Christian man you must not hide your light under a bushel, Crookes, but let it shine abroad.”  That’s what I’d say, Miss More, and I should like to know if you don’t think I should be right.’

’If the English and American press united to attack the butler’s character,’ answered Miss More without a smile, ’I think you would be quite right, Mrs. Dubbs.  But as regards Mr. Van Torp’s present position, I am sure he is the best judge of what he ought to do.’

These words of wisdom, and Miss More’s truthful eyes, greatly reassured the housekeeper, who afterwards upbraided the servants for paying any attention to such wicked falsehoods; and Mr. Crookes, the butler, wrote to his aged mother, who was anxious about his situation, to say that Mr. Van Torp must be either a real gentleman or a very hardened criminal indeed, because it was only forgers and real gentlemen who could act so precious cool; but that, on the whole, he, Crookes, and the housekeeper, who was a highly respectable person and the sister of a minister, as he wished his mother to remember, had made up their