“Why, yes, honey; but what’s that to do with it? with you being there, I mean?  Seems to me there’s a puzzlement here between us?  Did you stay there till one o’clock, honey?”

“Why, no, of course not!  We came away at eight.”

“Then I’m blessed if I know what you’re a-driving at!  For, in course, if you come away at eight o’clock you couldn’t a-seen her.”

“Seen whom?” questioned Nora.

“Why, laws, his wife, child, as never arrove till one o’clock.”

Nora burst out laughing; and in the midst of her mirthfulness exclaimed: 

“There, now, Mrs. Jones, I thought you didn’t know half the rights of the story you promised to tell us, and now I’m sure of it!  Seems like you’ve heard Mr. Brudenell has acknowledged his marriage; but you haven’t even found out who the lady is!  Well, I could tell you; but I won’t yet, without his leave.”

“So you know all about it, after all?  How did you find out?”

“Never mind how; you’ll find out how I knew it when you hear the bride’s name,” laughed Nora.

“But I have hearn the bride’s name; and a rum un it is, too!  Lady, Lady Hoist? no!  Hurl? no!  Hurt? yes, that is it!  Lady Hurt-me-so, that’s the name of the lady he’s done married!” said the old woman confidently.

“Ha, ha, ha!  I tell you what, Hannah, she has had too much wine, and it has got into her poor old head!” laughed Nora, laying her hand caressingly upon the red-cotton handkerchief that covered the gray hair of the gossip.

“No, it aint, nuther!  I never drunk the half of what you gin me!  I put it up there on the mantel, and kivered it over with the brass candlestick, to keep till I go to bed.  No, indeed! my head-piece is as clear as a bell!” said the old woman, nodding.

“But what put it in there, then, that Mr. Herman Brudenell has married a lady with a ridiculous name?” laughed Nora.

“Acause he have, honey! which I would a-told you all about it ef you hadn’t a-kept on, and kept on, and kept on interrupting of me!”

“Nora,” said Hannah, speaking for the first time in many minutes, and looking very grave, “she has something to tell, and we had better let her tell it.”

“Very well, then!  I’m agreed!  Go on, Mrs. Jones!”

“Hem-m-m!” began Mrs. Jones, loudly clearing her throat.  “Now I’ll tell you, jest as I got it, this arternoon, first from Uncle Jovial, and then from Mrs. Spicer, and then from Madam Brudenell herself, and last of all from my own precious eyesight!  ’Pears like Mr. Herman Brudenell fell in long o’ this Lady Hurl-my-soul—­Hurt-me-so, I mean,—­while he was out yonder in forring parts.  And ’pears she was a very great lady indeed, and a beautiful young widder besides.  So she and Mr. Brudenell, they fell in love long of each other.  But law, you see her kinfolks was bitter agin her a-marrying of him—­which they called him a commoner, as isn’t true, you know, ’cause he is not one of the common sort