Mrs. Wymans eyed her keenly, anxious to make out whether she was speaking satirically or not. Somewhat reassured on that point by Mrs. Dorriman's placid face, she drew a little nearer her and said confidentially, "What a sad thing Mrs. Drayton's position is!" "In what way?" Mrs. Dorriman received a dreadful shock by this sudden touch upon the subject. "Why, her husband being poor instead of rich, and some other things." "Do you mind telling me what other things?" and Mrs. Dorriman was alarmed as well as annoyed. "Why, if you do not know of any thing, ... but if it is not true, I had better not repeat it." "You really must tell me what you mean," and Mrs. Dorriman, the gentlest of women, had so to speak all her feathers ruffled now. "People say he drinks," answered Mrs. Wymans, with that sudden misgiving as to the wisdom of her words which made her wish them unsaid immediately they had passed her lips. "That I am sure is not the case," returned Mrs. Dorriman; she felt quite convinced that had there been any truth about this she would have heard it counted against him when her brother had been so incensed with her and had said many bitter things. "I am so very glad to hear it," and Mrs. Wymans lost her sense of discomfort, since it was not true. "It was a curious marriage for a young girl to make," she remarked abruptly, since she found Mrs. Dorriman's silence a little oppressive. "I think it was; but, though my brother offered them a home, he had, of course, no real authority over them." "Ah," said Mrs. Wymans, enchanted to have got at the root of the matter, "people were rather puzzled at his having taken them up so much; do you very much mind telling me, dear Mrs. Dorriman, how it all was? What was the real bond of union?" "Why should I mind telling you so simple a thing?" and Mrs. Dorriman's amused face was quite a little shock to her visitor; "they are his wife's nieces: he is their uncle by marriage, and being, as you are probably aware, devoted to his wife's memory, he was glad to befriend them." "And is this really all?" exclaimed Mrs. Wymans, who could hardly get over her disappointment. "Why we all thought--every one thought--and people said something else." "People are wrong," said Mrs. Dorriman, with a laugh that was a very genuine one; "I cannot myself understand the interest taken in these private matters, but that is the simple fact. Mr. Rivers and my brother married two sisters, who were devoted to each other. When Mrs. Rivers died she recommended her children to Mrs. Sandford, and at her death my brother promised to befriend them. It seems to me such a simple thing."