“As if I didn’t know that!” said Carey, with an angry, hurt little laugh; “and so I waited to be chaperoned up to the eyes between Clara Acton and the Duck in the very house with me. Now, Mary, I put it to you. Has one word passed that could do harm? Isn’t it much more innocent than all the Coffinkey gossip? I have no doubt Mrs. Coffinkey’s sister-in-law looks up from her black-bordered pocket-handkerchief to hear how Mrs. Brownlow’s sister-in-law went to the cricket-match. Do you know, Robert really thought I had been there? I only wonder how many I scored. I dare say Mrs. Coffinkey’s sister-in-law knows.” “It just shows how careful you should be.” “And I wonder what would become of the children if I shut myself up with a pile of pocket-handkerchiefs bordered an inch deep. What right have they to meddle with my ways, and my friends, and my boys?” “Not the Coffinkeys, certainly,” said Mary; “but indeed, Carey, I myself was uncomfortable at that singing in the lanes at eleven at night.” “It wasn’t eleven,” said Carey, perversely. “Only 10.50--eh?” “But what was the possible harm in it?” “None at all in itself, only remember the harm it may do to the children for you to be heedless of people’s opinion, and to get a reputation for flightiness and doing odd things.” “I couldn’t be like the Coffinkey pattern any more than I could be tied down to a rope walk.” “But you need not do things that your better sense must tell you may be misconstrued. Surely there was a wish that you should live near the Colonel and be guided by him.” “Little knowing that his guidance would consist in being set at me by Ellen and the Coffinkeys!” “Nonsense,” said Mary, vexed enough to resume their old school-girl manners. “You know I am not set on by anybody, and I tell you that if you do not pull up in time, and give no foundation for ill-natured comments, your children will never get over it in people’s estimation. And as for themselves, a little steadiness and regularity would be much better for their whole dispositions.” “It is holiday time,” said Carey, in a tone of apology. “If it is only in holiday time--”