‘Ah, well,’ said Mrs. Thornburgh, settling herself in a chair close by her friend, ‘I wanted to find you alone.’ Her face, framed in bushy curls and an old garden bonnet, was flushed and serious. Her mittened hands were clasped nervously on her lap, and there was about her such an air of forcibly restrained excitement, that Mrs. Leyburn’s mild eyes gazed at her with some astonishment. The two women were a curious contrast: Mrs. Thornburgh short, inclined, as we know, to be stout, ample and abounding in all things, whether it were curls or cap-strings or conversation; Mrs. Leyburn tall and well proportioned, well dressed, with the same graceful ways and languid pretty manners as had first attracted her husband’s attention thirty years before. She was fond of Mrs. Thornburgh, but there was something in the ebullient energies of the vicar’s wife which always gave her a sense of bustle and fatigue. ‘I am sure you will be sorry to hear,’ began her visitor, that Mr. Elsmere is going.’ ‘Going?’ said Mrs. Leyburn, laying down her knitting. ‘Why, I thought he was going to stay with you another ten days at least.’ ‘So did I--so did he,’ said Mrs. Thornburgh, nodding, and then pausing with a most effective air of sudden gravity and ‘recollection.’ ‘Then why--what’s the matter?’ asked Mrs. Leyburn, wondering. Mrs. Thornburgh did not answer for a minute, and Mrs. Leyburn began to feel a little nervous, her visitor’s eyes were fixed upon her with so much meaning. Urged by a sudden impulse, she bent forward; so did Mrs. Thornburgh, and their two elderly heads nearly touched. ‘The young man is in love!’ said the vicar’s wife in a stage whisper, drawing back after a pause, to see the effect of her announcement. ‘Oh! with whom?’ asked Mrs. Leyburn, her look brightening. She liked a love affair as much as ever. Mrs. Thornburgh furtively looked round to see if the door was shut and all safe--she felt herself a criminal, but the sense of guilt had an exhilarating rather than a depressing affect upon her. ‘Have you guessed nothing? have the girls told you anything?’ ‘No!’ said Mrs. Leyburn, her eyes opening wider and wider. She never guessed anything; there was no need, with three daughters to think for her, and give her the benefit of their young brains. ‘No,’ she said again. ‘I can’t imagine what you mean.’ Mrs. Thornburgh felt a rush of inward contempt for so much obtuseness. ‘Well, then, _he is in love with Catherine!_’ she said abruptly, laying her hand on Mrs. Leyburn’s knee, and watching the effect. ‘With Catherine!’ stammered Mrs. Leyburn; ‘_with Catherine!_’ The idea was amazing to her. She took up her knitting with trembling fingers, and went on with it mechanically a second or two. Then laying it down--‘Are you quite sure? has he told you?’