‘I don’t think it’s likely,’ said Miss Phoebe, with a little simper and a knowing look, which sate oddly on her kindly innocent face.  ’You see a great deal of Mr. Preston, don’t you, Molly!’

‘Mr. Preston!’ said Molly, flushing up with surprise.  ’No! not much.  He’s been at Ashcombe all winter, you know!  He has but just come back to settle here, What should make you think so!’

‘Oh! a little bird told us,’ said Miss Browning.  Molly knew that little bird from her childhood, and had always hated it, and longed to wring its neck.  Why could not people speak out and say that they did not mean to give up the name of their informant?  But it was a very favourite form of fiction with the Miss Brownings, and to Miss Phoebe it was the very acme of wit.

’The little bird was flying about one day in Heath Lane, and it saw Mr. Preston and a young lady—­we won’t say who—­walking together in a very friendly manner, that is to say, he was on horseback; but the path is raised above the road, just where there is the little wooden bridge over the brook—­’

‘Perhaps Molly is in the secret, and we ought not to ask her about it,’ said Miss Phoebe, seeing Molly’s extreme discomfiture and annoyance.

‘It can be no great secret,’ said Miss Browning, dropping the little-bird formula, and assuming an air of dignified reproval at Miss Phoebe’s interruption, ’for Miss Hornblower says Mr. Preston owns to being engaged—­’

‘At any rate it is not to Cynthia, that I know positively,’ said Molly with some vehemence.  ’And pray put a stop to any such reports; you don’t know what mischief they may do.  I do so hate that kind of chatter!’ It was not very respectful of Molly to speak in this way to be sure, but she thought only of Roger; and the distress any such reports might cause, should he ever hear of them (in the centre of Africa!) made her colour up scarlet with vexation.

’Heighty-teighty!  Miss Molly! don’t you remember that I am old enough to be your mother, and that it is not pretty behaviour to speak so to us—­to me!  “Chatter” to be sure.  Really, Molly—­’

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Molly, only half-penitent.

‘I daresay you did not mean to speak so to sister,’ said Miss Phoebe, trying to make peace.

Molly did not answer all at once.  She wanted to explain how much mischief might be done by such reports.

‘But don’t you see,’ she went on, still flushed by vexation, ’how bad it is to talk of such things in such a way?  Supposing one of them cared for some one else, and that might happen, you know; Mr Preston, for instance, may be engaged to some one else?’

’Molly!  I pity the woman!  Indeed I do.  I have a very poor opinion of Mr. Preston,’ said Miss Browning, in a warning tone of voice; for a new idea had come into her head.

’Well, but the woman, or young lady, would not like to hear such reports about Mr. Preston.’