`Oh, no! you know nothing of her former life; and last year at this time, you did not know that such a person existed.'
`No matter. There is' such a thing as looking through a person's eyes into the heart, and learning more of the height, and breadth, and depth of another's soul in one hour, than it might take you a lifetime to discover, if he or she were not disposed to reveal it,--or if you had not the sense to understand it.'
`Then you are going to see her this evening?'
To be sure I am!'
`But what would mamma say, Gilbert?'
`Mamma needn't know.'
`But she must know sometime,if you go on'
`Go on!--there's no going on in the matter--Mrs Graham and I are two friends--and will be; and no man breathing shall hinder it,--or has a right to interfere between us.'
`But if you knew how they talk, you would be more careful--for her sake as well as for your own. Jane Wilson thinks your visits to the old hall but another proof of her depravity--'
`Confound Jane Wilson!'
`And Eliza Millward is quite grieved about you.'
`I hope she is.'
`But I wouldn't if I were you.'
`Wouldn't what?--How do they know that I go there?'
`There's nothing hid from them: they spy out everything.'
`Oh, I never thought of this!--And so they dare to turn my friendship into food for further scandal against her!--That proves the falsehood of their other lies, at all events, if any proof were wanting.--Mind you contradict them, Rose, whenever you can.'
`But they don't speak openly to me about such things: it is only by hints and innuendoes, and by what I hear others say, that I know what they think.'
`Well then, I won't go today, as it's getting latish. But oh, deuce take their cursed envenomed tongues!' I muttered, in the bitterness of my soul.
And just at that moment, the vicar entered the room: we had been too much absorbed in our conversation to observe his knock. Alter his customary cheerful and fatherly greeting of Rose, who was rather a favourite with the old gentleman, he turned somewhat sternly to me:--
`Well, sir!' said he, `you're quite a stranger. It is-let-me-see,' he continued, slowly, as he deposited his ponderous bulk in the armchair that Rose officiously brought towards him, `it is just six--weeks--by my reckoning, since you darkened--my--door!' He spoke it with emphasis, and struck his stick on the floor.
`Is it, sir?' said I.
`Ay! It is so!' He added an affiramatory nod, and continued to gaze upon me with a kind of irate solemnity, holding his substantial stick between his knees, with his hands clasped upon its head.