“Yes, but I don’t believe half of it,” said Charlotte. “Mrs. Grayson you know always puts the worst construction upon every thing. She is so very harsh in her judgments.” “And she of all others should have mercy upon those in trouble,” observed Mrs. Appleton, who had just then came into the room. “But what were you talking of girls?” And with great animation they related Mrs. Grayson’s bit of gossip to their mother. “Strange!” said Mrs. Appleton, “that Mrs. Grayson should be the first to tell it.” “Why, mamma?” asked both daughters at once. “Because just such an affair occurred in her own family.” “In hers! When?” exclaimed they in astonishment. “I never heard that before!” “Oh, years ago—you can hardly remember it. Indeed it was just after I was married.” “Then,” said Charlotte laughing, “it’s not surprising we do not remember the circumstance.” “I had forgotten it was so long ago,” said their mother. “It made a great talk at the time.” And then scandal that had been buried for years and years was revived and listened to with no small interest. “Strange!” said Emma, “that Mrs. Grayson should talk of Mrs. Crawford.” “I should think she would avoid all such stories as carefully as possible,” said Charlotte. “I suppose she thought we knew nothing about it,” pursued Emma. “But if we did not, _she_ must,” replied Charlotte. “People cannot forget such things themselves.” “Mrs. Grayson has gone through severe trials and mortifications in life,” observed their mother. “Then it ought to give her some charity for others,” said Charlotte. “But she is the _hardest_ woman I know.” “It appears to me that’s always the case,” said Emma. “One would think that suffering would soften and purify—but it does not.” “Not that kind of suffering,” remarked their mother. “That which comes of mortification, and which we experience at the hands of our fellow men, there are few natures fine enough not to grow hard under it.” Emma heard her mother afterward in a low voice telling their father the story she had just heard from her daughters, and giving Mrs. Grayson as authority. “The less _she_ says about it the better,” drily remarked Mr. Appleton. “You remember, my dear,” continued his wife, “that affair of her sister.” “To be sure,” he replied. “A bad business. I always wondered how they got over it.” And then Mr. and Mrs. Appleton had a long, comfortable, cosy talk, in which things long past and forgotten were brought to life, as the old couple warmed up in their reminiscences of “old times.” Emma soon tired, and gave up trying to keep the thread of grandmothers and great-aunts, particularly as her father and mother frequently confounded the present with the past generation, and she found that the “young Tom Somebody,” that they were talking of, was now the “old Tom,” of present times; the “young Tom” being a middle-aged man, with a Tom junior treading fast on his heels.