“I have changed my mind,” said she, as she came, breathless, up into the show-room.  “I will take the bonnet.  How much is it?”

“Allow me to change the flowers; it can be done in an instant, and then you can see if you would not prefer the roses; but with either foliage it is a lovely little bonnet,” said Mrs. Pearson, holding it up admiringly on her hand.

“Oh! never mind the flowers—­yes! change them to the roses.”  And she stood by, agitated (Mrs. Pearson thought with impatience), all the time the milliner was making the alteration with skilful, busy haste.

“By the way,” said Jemima, when she saw the last touches were being given, and that she must not delay executing the purpose which was the real cause of her return—­“Papa, I am sure, would not like your connecting Mrs. Denbigh’s name with such a—­story as you have been telling me.”

“Oh dear! ma’am, I have too much respect for you all to think of doing such a thing!  Of course I know, ma’am, that it is not to be cast up to any lady that she is like any-body disreputable.”

“But I would rather you did not name the likeness to any one,” said Jemima; “not to any one.  Don’t tell any one the story you have told me this morning.”

“Indeed, ma’am, I should never think of such a thing!  My poor husband could have borne witness that I am as close as the grave where there is anything to conceal.”

“Oh dear!” said Jemima, “Mrs. Pearson, there is nothing to conceal; only you must not speak about it.”

“I certainly shall not do it, ma’am; you may rest assured of me.”

This time Jemima did not go towards home, but in the direction of the outskirts of the town, on the hilly side.  She had some dim recollection of hearing her sisters ask if they might not go and invite Leonard and his mother to tea; and how could she face Ruth, after the conviction had taken possession of her heart that she, and the sinful creature she bad just heard of, were one and the same?  It was yet only the middle of the afternoon; the hours were early in the old-fashioned town of Eccleston.  Soft white clouds had come slowly sailing up out of the west; the plain was flecked with thin floating shadows, gently borne along by the westerly wind that was waving the long grass in the hay-fields into alternate light and shade.  Jemima went into one of these fields, lying by the side of the upland road.  She was stunned by the shock she had received.  The diver leaving the green sward, smooth and known, where his friends stand with their familiar smiling faces, admiring his glad bravery—­the diver, down in an instant in the horrid depths of the sea, close to some strange, ghastly, lidless-eyed monster, can hardly more feel his blood curdle at the near terror than did Jemima now.  Two hours ago—­but a point of time on her mind’s dial—­she had never Imagined that she should ever come in contact with any one who had committed open sin; she had never