I made a mental interrogation point, but I did not dare to give utterance to the heresy lest I should seem to be carrying out Aunt Agnes's insinuation that I would next accuse Mr. Spence of flirting with me. I replied with as much quietness as I could at the moment command,-- "I can only repeat what I have already said. Miss Kingsley has slandered me, whether intentionally or not I do not know. But her charge of coquetry is utterly without foundation." "Did you not make eyes at Mr. Barr, and give him a rose?" she interrupted. "You see I know all." "No, I did not," I answered, flushing. "On the contrary, Mr. Barr made me feel excessively uncomfortable during most of the evening by the absurd compliments he paid me, and by the way in which he stared at me. As for the rose, I dropped it accidentally as I was getting into my carriage, and I believe he picked it up." "Accidentally!" said Aunt Agnes with a sniff. "As my informant said, 'when a young woman flings herself at the head of a hot-souled poet, what is she to expect?' Human nature is human nature, and there are not many men with the self-control of Mr. Spence." "Miss Kingsley seems to have given you a great deal of information, Aunt Agnes." "You are mistaken again, as usual. The person who told me this is a sober-minded woman of middle age, who could not have been influenced by jealousy." "Mrs. Marsh, I suppose. I might have known it, from her choice vocabulary. Talk of gossips, Aunt Agnes, I never heard a worse one in any drawing-room in the city. Who _is_ Mrs. Marsh?" I was glowing with indignation again, and justly so as it seemed to me. I had been cruelly misconstrued, and my self-control on the occasion of Miss Kingsley's tea had been wholly unappreciated. "Who is Mrs. Marsh? You may well ask who is Mrs. Marsh, after what you have said about her. Gossip or no gossip, vocabulary or no vocabulary, Mrs. Marsh is a very deserving woman, who by her own unaided efforts has risen to the position she now occupies. How often shall I be obliged to impress upon you that it is the spirit, not the letter, that is of importance? As secretary of the Society for the Practice of Moderation, Mrs. Marsh can afford to disregard the ill-natured sneers of those who may have enjoyed greater advantages in early life than she. It is not by wholesale abuse of others, Virginia, that you will persuade me of your innocence. On your own showing, you have written to Mr. Spence, and misconstrued Mr. Barr's poetic impetuosity as an attempt to flirt with you. I do not desire to discuss the matter further. We shall soon know whether you are sincere or not in your professions of study. As I have told you before, your future is in your own hands; but first and foremost you must rid yourself of this propensity to behave in a trivial manner."