‘Lucille Ventadour!’ said Phillis, in a sharp voice, out of tune.

‘Then you knew too!’ exclaimed the minister.  We both spoke at once.  I said, ‘I heard of the probability of—­and told Phillis.’  She said, ’He is married to Lucille Ventadour, of French descent; one of a large family near St. Meurice; am not I right?’ I nodded ’Paul told me,—­that is all we know, is not it?  Did you see the Howsons, father, in Heathbridge?’ and she forced herself to talk more than she had done for several days, asking many questions, trying, as I could see, to keep the conversation off the one raw surface, on which to touch was agony.  I had less self-command; but I followed her lead.  I was not so much absorbed in the conversation but what I could see that the minister was puzzled and uneasy; though he seconded Phillis’s efforts to prevent her mother from recurring to the great piece of news, and uttering continual exclamations of wonder and surprise.  But with that one exception we were all disturbed out of our natural equanimity, more or less.  Every day, every hour, I was reproaching myself more and more for my blundering officiousness.  If only I had held my foolish tongue for that one half-hour; if only I had not been in such impatient haste to do something to relieve pain!  I could have knocked my stupid head against the wall in my remorse.  Yet all I could do now was to second the brave girl in her efforts to conceal her disappointment and keep her maidenly secret.  But I thought that dinner would never, never come to an end.  I suffered for her, even more than for myself.  Until now everything which I had heard spoken in that happy household were simple words of true meaning.  If we bad aught to say, we said it; and if any one preferred silence, nay if all did so, there would have been no spasmodic, forced efforts to talk for the sake of talking, or to keep off intrusive thoughts or suspicions.

At length we got up from our places, and prepared to disperse; but two or three of us had lost our zest and interest in the daily labour.  The minister stood looking out of the window in silence, and when he roused himself to go out to the fields where his labourers were working, it was with a sigh; and he tried to avert his troubled face as he passed us on his way to the door.  When he had left us, I caught sight of Phillis’s face, as, thinking herself unobserved, her countenance relaxed for a moment or two into sad, woeful weariness.  She started into briskness again when her mother spoke, and hurried away to do some little errand at her bidding.  When we two were alone, cousin Holman recurred to Holdsworth’s marriage.  She was one of those people who like to view an event from every side of probability, or even possibility; and she had been cut short from indulging herself in this way during dinner.

’To think of Mr Holdsworth’s being married!  I can’t get over it, Paul.  Not but what he was a very nice young man!  I don’t like her name, though; it sounds foreign.  Say it again, my dear.  I hope she’ll know how to take care of him, English fashion.  He is not strong, and if she does not see that his things are well aired, I should be afraid of the old cough’