“Oh, indeed! But you must have made a mistake. Mr. Temple is a very slight acquaintance of mine. I have met him only a few times, and I know nothing about his cousin. I was not aware even that he had gone away.” Hannah raised her speaking eyebrows and replied, quite loud now, for the choir leader had stood up already with his tuning-fork in hand, and one could hear it faintly twang: “Indeed!”—using Marcia’s own word—and quite coldly, “I should have thought differently from what Harry himself told me,” and there was that in her tone which deepened the color in Marcia’s cheeks and caused it to stay there during the entire morning service as she sat puzzling over what Hannah could have meant. It rankled in her mind during the whole day. She longed to ask David about it, but could not get up the courage. She could not bear to revive the memory of what seemed to be her shame. It was at the minister’s donation party that Hannah planted another thorn in her heart,—Hannah, in a green plaid silk with delicate undersleeves of lace, and a tiny black velvet jacket. She selected a time when Lemuel was near, and when Aunt Amelia and Aunt Hortense, who believed that all the young men in town were hovering about David’s wife, sat one on either side of Marcia, as if to guard her for their beloved nephew—who was discussing politics with Mr. Heath—and who never seemed to notice, so blind he was in his trust of her. So Hannah paused and posed before the three ladies, and with Lemuel smiling just at her elbow, began in her affected way: “I’ve had another letter from New York, from your friend Mr. Temple,” she said it with the slightest possible glance over her shoulder to get the effect of her words upon the faithful Lemuel, “and he tells me he has met a sister of yours. By the way, she told him that David used to be very fond of her before she was married. I suppose she’ll be coming to visit you now she’s so near as New York.” Two pairs of suspicious steely eyes flew like stinging insects to gaze upon her, one on either side, and Marcia’s heart stood still for just one instant, but she felt that here was her trying time, and if she would help David and do the work for which she had become his wife, she must protect him now from any suspicions or disagreeable tongues. By very force of will she controlled the trembling of her lips.