“I would give all I possess to make my mother happy.”

“Good, dear, little Kitty!  You don’t incline then to the belief that your brother wants me for the guineas’ worth!”

“Beatrice, I don’t think Loftus is really sordid and he loves you.  Oh, how earnestly he told me that he loved you.  And my mother, she often, often talks of you, and I know she cares for you, Bee.”

“Come into the house,” said Beatrice, suddenly.  “Now that you have come you must spend the evening with me.  We can send a messenger to the Manor to tell them, and after tea you and I will go on the water.  We’ll have a happy evening together, Kate, and we won’t talk any more about Loftus, no, not another word.  If I do a thing I do it generously, but I will not discuss the pros and cons even with, you any more.”

CHAPTER XXII.

SPARE THE POOR CHILD’S BLUSHES.

It was Miss Peters who first spread the news.  She heard it whispered at the fishmonger’s, spoken of aloud at the butcher’s, and confirmed at the baker’s.  She could doubt this combined testimony no longer, and hurried home to put on her best bonnet with the wallflowers in it, and go forth on a visiting tour.

Miss Peters was in the seventh heaven of delight.  To have news, and such news, to convey, would make her a welcome inmate that afternoon of every house in Northbury.  She was intensely anxious to go out and convey her news without being accompanied by her large sister, Mrs. Butler.  In Mrs. Butler’s presence Miss Peters was only a shadow, and she had no wish to be a shadow on this occasion.

She had heard the gossip, not Martha—­why, therefore, should she tell Martha for the sole satisfaction of having it repeated by Martha in her own tiresome way to each neighbor she met, while she, poor Miss Peters, who had really got the information first-hand—­for the baker who served the two families with bread was so absolutely reliable—­could only nod her head and roll her eyes in confirmation.

Miss Peters resolved, therefore, to tell her news to Mrs. Butler last of all; and her object now was to slip softly out of doors without being heard by her sister.  She nearly accomplished this feat, but not quite.  As she was going downstairs, with her best bonnet on, her lavender gloves drawn neatly over her hands, and her parasol, which was jointed in the middle and could fold up, tucked under her arm, she trod on a treacherous board which creaked loudly.

This was enough.  Mrs. Butler popped her head out of the drawing-room door and confronted the little spinster.

“Where now, Maria?” she asked.  “Dear, dear, and I’ve been wondering what was keeping you all this time.  Where are you off to?  Why, I declare you have on your visiting things?”

“I thought I’d just go round and see one or two friends, as the afternoon is fine,” answered Miss Maria, in a meek voice.