“Remain!” exclaimed La Fleur; “they’ve never said a word to me, madam, about going away, and I don’t believe they have thought of it.  I am sure I haven’t.”

Miss Panney shook her head.

“It’s none of my business,” she said, “but I’ve lived a long time in this world, and that gives me a right to speak my mind to people who haven’t lived so long.  It may have been all very well for the Dranes to have come here for a little vacation of a week or ten days, but to stay on and on is not the proper thing at all, and if you really have a regard for them, La Fleur, I think it is your duty to make them understand this.  You might not care to speak plainly, of course, but you can easily make them perceive the situation, without offending them, or saying anything which an old servant might not say, in a case like this.”

“But, madam,” said La Fleur, “what’s to hinder their stopping here?  There’s no spot on earth that could suit them better, to my way of thinking.”

“La Fleur,” said Miss Panney, regarding the other with moderate severity, “you ought to know that when people see a young woman like Miss Drane brought to live in a house with a handsome young gentleman, who, to all intents and purposes, is keeping a bachelor’s hall,—­for that girl upstairs is entirely too young to be considered a mistress of a house,—­and when they know that the young lady’s mother is a lady in impoverished circumstances, the people are bound to say, when they talk, that that young woman was brought here on purpose to catch the master of the house, and I don’t think, La Fleur, that you would like to hear that said of Mrs. Drane.”

As she listened, the bodily eyes of La Fleur were contracted until they were almost shut, but her mental eyes opened wider and wider.  She suspected that there was something back of Miss Panney’s words.

“If I heard anybody say that, madam, meaning it, I don’t think they would care to say it to me again.  But leaving out all that and looking at the matter with my lights, it does seem to me that if Mr. Haverley wanted a mistress for his house, and felt inclined to marry Miss Cicely Drane, he couldn’t make a better choice.”

“Choice!” repeated Miss Panney, sarcastically.  “He has no choice to make.  That is settled, and that is the very reason why people will talk the more and sharper, and nothing you can say, Madam Jane La Fleur, will stop them.  Not only does this look like a scheme to marry Mr. Haverley to a girl who can bring him nothing, but to break off a most advantageous match with a lady who, in social position, wealth, and in every way, stands second to no one in this county.”

“And who may that be, please?” asked La Fleur.

Miss Panney hesitated.  It would be a bold thing to give the answer that was on her tongue, but she was no coward, and this was a crisis of importance.  A proper impression made upon this woman might be productive of more good results than if made upon any one else.