‘And you don’t call this wrong?’ said Miss Stanbury, in a tone of indignation.

‘But perhaps mamma will tell them to go.’

’I hope she will.  I hope she has.  But he was allowed to be there for hours.  And now three days have passed and there is no sign of anything being done.  He came and went and may come again when he pleases.’  Still Dorothy pleaded.  ‘I shall do my duty,’ said Miss Stanbury.

‘I am quite sure mamma will do nothing wrong,’ said Dorothy.  But the letter was written and sent, and the answer to the letter reached the house in the Close in due time.

When Miss.  Stanbury had read and re-read the very short reply which her niece had written, she became at first pale with dismay, and then red with renewed vigour and obstinacy.  She had made herself, as she thought, quite certain of her facts before she had acted on her information.  There was some equivocation, some most unworthy deceit in Priscilla’s letter.  Or could it be possible that she herself had been mistaken?  Another gentleman had been there not, however, with the object of seeing Mrs Trevelyan!  So said Priscilla.  But she had made herself sure that the man in question was a man from London, a middle-aged, man from London, who had specially asked for Mrs Trevelyan, and who had at once been known to Mrs Clegg, at the Lessboro’ inn, to be Mrs Trevelyan’s lover.  Miss Stanbury was very unhappy, and at last sent for Giles Hickbody.  Giles Hickbody had never pretended to know the name.  He had seen the man and had described him, ’Quite a swell, ma’am; and a Lon’oner, and one as’d be up to anything; but not a young ’un; no, not just a young ‘un, zartainly.’  He was cross-examined again now, and said that all he knew about the man’s name was that there was a handle to it.  This was ended by Miss Stanbury sending him down to Lessboro’ to learn the very name of the gentleman, and by his coming back with that of the Honourable George Glascock written on a piece of paper.  ’They says now as he was arter the other young ‘ooman,’ said Giles Hickbody.  Then was the confusion of Miss Stanbury complete.

It was late when Giles returned from Lessboro’, and nothing could be done that night.  It was too late to write a letter for the next morning’s post.  Miss Stanbury, who was as proud of her own discrimination as she was just and true, felt that a day of humiliation had indeed come for her.  She hated Priscilla almost as vigorously as Priscilla hated her.  To Priscilla she would not write to own her fault; but it was incumbent on her to confess it to Mrs Stanbury.  It was incumbent on her also to confess it to Dorothy.  All that night she did not sleep, and the next morning she went about abashed, wretched, hardly mistress of her own maids.  She must confess it also to Martha, and Martha would be very stern to her.  Martha had poob-poohed the whole story of the lover, seeming to think that there could be no reasonable objection to a lover past fifty.