‘You needn’t come for to give such advice to any girl of mine, Mrs Hody!’ she exclaimed, quite hotly, ‘for it isn’t needed. Believe any rubbish a gentleman born might say to her! I should think not, indeed. Nell is much too sensible for that. She knows that gentleman’s compliments mean no good for poor girls, and would not encourage such a thing for a moment. My lasses are not like the Simpsons, Mrs Hody, nor yet the Manleys. They’ve never been allowed to run loose for anyone to talk to, but been reared in a God-fearing way and taught that His eye is on them everywhere. There’s no occasion for you to caution them. I can assure you, I would rather see Nell stretched dead at my feet, than think her capable of such folly. Why, who knows what it might lead to? Gentlemen have flattering tongues sometimes for country girls, and put all sorts of silly ideas into their heads. If I thought our Nell would even speak to such lodgers as you may choose to send us, Mrs Hody, I wouldn’t let my rooms to you, not if you gave me ten pounds a week for them, there!’ And Mrs Llewellyn, quite exhausted by her efforts, stopped talking and wiped her steaming face with her apron. ‘Oh, mother, dear, why make so much of it?’ said Nell, with cheeks of crimson. ‘I am sure Mrs Hody never thought that I or Hetty would behave ourselves in an unseemly way with your lodgers. It was only a kindly caution on her part. And you need have no fear for me, believe me.’ ‘No, indeed, Mrs Llewellyn,’ interposed the housekeeper, anxious to make peace with her hostess, ‘I only put in my little word on account of your Nell here being so handsome, and I, knowing but too well what some of the gentlemen as come to the Hall are. Why, didn’t one of ’em wrong poor little Katie Brown only last autumn twelvemonth, stuffing the poor child’s head up with some nonsense about marriage not being necessary, and that he’d stick to her all his life, and then going off when the shooting was over and leaving her with a baby at her back. Tom Brown was after bringing an action against the gentleman--Mr Frank Leyton, it was--and getting some money out of him for his daughter’s shame; but the lawyer advised him not, for there was no evidence except Katie’s word, and that wouldn’t be enough in a court of justice, he said. I’ve taken good care not to have any pretty girls about the Hall since, and if your Nell had come up to help me, I would have kept her out of their way, for such a set of unprincipled vagabonds I never see before!’