"
"The nasty little story-teller!" Mrs. Twemlow cried. "But I am not at
all surprised at it, when I saw how she had got her hair done up, last
Sunday."
"No; Polly believed it. I am quite sure of that. But what I want to tell
you is much stranger and more important, though it cannot have anything
at all to do with Cheeseman. You know, I told you I was going for a good
long ride; but I did not tell you where, because I knew that you would
try to stop me. But the fact was that I had made up my mind to see what
Caryl Carne is at, among his owls and ivy. You remember the last time
I went to the old place I knocked till I was tired, but could get no
answer, and the window was stopped with some rusty old spiked railings,
where we used to be able to get in at the side. All the others are out
of reach, as you know well; and being of a yielding nature, I came
sadly home. And at that time I still had some faith in your friend Mrs.
Stubbard, who promised to find out all about him, by means of Widow
Shanks and the Dimity-parlour. But nothing has come of that. Poor Mrs.
Stubbard is almost as stupid as her husband; and as for Widow Shanks--I
am quite sure, Maria, if your nephew were plotting the overthrow of
King, Church, and Government, that deluded woman would not listen to a
word against him."
"She calls him a model, and a blessed martyr"--Mrs. Twemlow was smiling
at the thought of it; "and she says she is a woman of great penetration,
and never will listen to anything.
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