Alfred had left town for Boston on the very day on which Hope Wayne had learned the story of her engagement.  Neither his mother nor Hope, therefore, had had an opportunity of asking an explanation.

“I am glad to see Miss Wayne with you to-night,” said Fanny.

“My niece is her own mistress,” replied Mrs. Dinks, in a sub-acid tone.

Fanny’s eyes grew blacker and sharper in a moment.  An Indian whose life depends upon concealment from his pursuer is not more sensitive to the softest dropping of the lightest leaf than was Fanny Newt’s sagacity to the slightest indication of discovery of her secret.  There is trouble, she said to herself, as she heard Mrs. Dinks’s reply.

“Miss Wayne has been a recluse this winter,” remarked Fanny, with infinite blandness.

“Yes, she has had some kind of whim,” replied Mrs. Dinks, shaking her shoulders as if to settle her dress.

“We girls have all suspected, you know, of course, Mrs. Dinks,” said Miss Newt, with a very successful imitation of archness and a little bend of the neck.

“Have you, indeed!” retorted Mrs. Dinks, in almost a bellicose manner.

“Why, yes, dear Mrs. Dinks; don’t you remember at Saratoga—­you know?” continued Fanny, with imperturbable composure.

“What happened at Saratoga?” asked Mrs. Dinks, with smooth defiance on her face, and conscious that she had never actually mentioned any engagement between Alfred and Hope.

“Dear me!  So many things happen at Saratoga,” answered Fanny, bridling like a pert miss of seventeen.  “And when a girl has a handsome cousin, it’s very dangerous.”  Fanny Newt was determined to know where she was.

“Some girls are very silly and willful,” tartly remarked Mrs. Dinks.

“I suppose,” said Fanny, with extraordinary coolness, continuing the role of the arch maid of seventeen—­“I suppose, if every thing one hears is true, we may congratulate you, dear Mrs. Dinks, upon an interesting event?” And Fanny raised her bouquet and smelled at it vigorously—­at least, she seemed to be doing so, because the flowers almost covered her face, but really they made an ambush from which she spied the enemy, unseen.

The remark she had made had been made a hundred times before to Mrs. Dinks.  In fact, Fanny herself had used it, under various forms, to assure herself, by the pleased reserve of the reply which Mrs. Dinks always returned, that the lady had no suspicion that she was mistaken.  But this time Mrs. Dinks, whose equanimity had been entirely disturbed by her discovery that Hope was not engaged to Alfred, asked formally, and not without a slight sneer which arose from an impatient suspicion that Fanny knew more than she chose to disclose—­

“And pray, Miss Newt, what do people hear?  Really, if other people are as unfortunate as I am, they hear a great deal of nonsense.”

Upon which Mrs. Budlong Dinks sniffed the air like a charger.