Mrs. Vanderplanck, left to herself, rocked backward and forward in her chair, with her hands clasped over her forehead, much in the way that an insane person might have done.

“Who’d have thought it! who’d have thought it!  In the very village—­in the very house—­of all places in the world!—­in the very house!—­and he laid up—­can’t be moved—­can’t be taken away.  Why didn’t I know?—­why didn’t I find out?—­careless—­stupid—­thoughtless!  Curse the woman! couldn’t I have imagined that she’d never be far away from her dear professor—­and we sent him there—­we hid him away—­we disguised his name—­college was too public for him—­let him finish his education in the country—­and then we could escape away—­to Germany—­France—­anywhere—­and carry all the money with us—­all the money!—­half for me, and half for him!—­and what’ll become of it now?  Curse the woman!  I knew she couldn’t be dead.  But she sha’n’t have the money—­no! she sha’n’t, she sha’n’t!

“Is it possible, now?—­could it be that that girl was deceiving me?  Did she know the woman’s name, after all?—­no, no! she hasn’t the face for it—­no hypocrite in her yet—­not yet, not yet!  Well, but what if it’s all a mistake?—­Why not a mistake? why not?—­tell me that!  Plenty of women called Abbie, aren’t there?  Why shouldn’t this be one of them—­one of the others?  No, but the professor had known her before—­oh, yes!—­known her before! and there’s only one Abbie that the professor knew before!  Curse her—­curse her!

“Well, what if she is there? how will she know him?  The professor won’t tell her—­he can’t—­he dare not tell her!—­for I made him promise he wouldn’t, and I’ve got his promise, written down—­written down!—­Ah! that was smart—­that was smart!  Yes, but the boy looks like his father!—­that’ll betray him!—­she’ll know him by that—­know him? well, just as bad—­yes, and worse too, in the end—­worse!  Oh! curse her!

“Never mind.  I know how to manage.  If the worst comes to the worst, I know what to do!  And I must write to him—­not now—­as soon as he’s well—­he must come away.  Even if it should turn out all a mistake, he must come away!—­I’ll write to him, as soon as he’s well, that he must come away.  And I’ll question Cornelia again—­ah! she’s a handsome girl!—­it’s well I got her up here, out of the way!—­I’ll find out more from her.  It may be a mistake, after all—­it may, it may!”

While Aunt Margaret, sitting in her boudoir, thus took doubtful and disconnected counsel with herself, Cornelia was left to manage her little difficulties as best she might.  Being tolerably quick in observing, and putting things together, and unwilling to trust to intuitive judgments of what was safe or unsafe in the moral atmosphere, she set to work with all her wits, and not without some measure of success, to fathom the secrets of the tantalizing freemasonry which piqued her curiosity.  By listening to all that was said, laughing when others laughed, keeping silent when she was puzzled, comparing results and drawing deductions, she presently began to understand a good deal more than she had bargained for, was considerably shocked and disgusted, and perhaps felt desirous to unlearn what she had learned.