“Certainly not, madam; and Heaven grant she never may. She's as pure-minded as any seraph, and, like Charity, thinketh no evil. But she told me this afternoon--seeing that you were troubled, and not liking to pain you, perhaps without reason, and speaking to me as her old nurse and friend, who loves all the Lisgards, good and bad (for they are not all good, alas, alas!), and who will love them to the end--she told me that something which she had overheard between Miss Rose and Master Walter”---- “You mean Sir Richard,” interposed my Lady. “No, madam--his brother. It was Master Walter that I was speaking of the other day in the carriage, and whom I understood your Ladyship to say that Miss Aynton had refused. I knew very well that they were love-making, flirting and such like upon the sly; but I did not know--I could not suspect----- O mistress dear, a terrible disgrace has befallen you, through that infamous young hussy, Miss Rose Aynton--though what Master Walter could have seen in the Jade, I am sure passes my comprehension altogether.” “Disgrace! Walter! Rose Aynton! What do you mean, woman?” asked my Lady angrily. “You must be mad, to say such things. I heard Sir Richard ask the girl to be his wife with my own ears, and she refused him.” “Did she, my Lady? Well, I'm surprised at that, for I should have thought she would have stuck at _nothing_.--But let me tell the whole story. What Miss Letty heard at the picnic was this: she heard Master Walter cursing Miss Rose. That was an odd thing for a young gentleman to do to a young lady--although, for that matter, I have no doubt she _deserved_ it--was it not? Well, that was what Miss Letty thought. She had never heard such words before, and could scarcely force her innocent lips to repeat them; but I made her do it. And certainly Master Walter expressed himself pretty strong. It seems he was angered about the young woman's behaviour to his brother yesterday”---- “Ay,” interrupted my Lady quietly, and still thinking that the prejudice of her waiting-maid had much exaggerated matters, “that was partly my fault; I begged Miss Aynton to be more complaisant in her manner to Sir Richard.” “Well, Master Walter might have been annoyed, madam, but what right had he to be _jealous!_ and especially what relation could exist between him and Miss Rose, which justified him in using such dreadful words? Fancy _swearing_ at her, my Lady!” “Yes, that is shocking indeed, Mary. Miss Letty, however, must certainly have misunderstood him.” “That's what I told her, my Lady, in hopes to quiet her a bit; but I did not believe it myself, no more than you do. We don't suppose that Miss Letty invented the oaths, do we?” “That is true,” sighed Lady Lisgard. “It makes me very wretched to think that my boy Walter should have so far forgotten himself as to use such language to a young girl--a guest, too, in his mother's house. I shall certainly demand an explanation of it from his own lips.”