"Who died?" interrupted Jemima--"the young man's mother, or--or Ruth Hilton?" "Oh dear, ma'am! pray don't confuse the two. It was the mother, Mrs-- I forget the name--something like Billington. It was the lady who died." "And what became of the other?" asked Jemima, unable, as her dark suspicion seemed thickening, to speak the name. "The girl? Why, ma'am, what could become of her? Not that I know exactly--only one knows they can but go from bad to worse, poor creatures! God forgive me, if I am speaking too transiently of such degraded women, who, after all, are a disgrace to our sex." "Then you know nothing more about her?" asked Jemima. "I did hear that she had gone off with another gentleman that she met with in Wales, but I'm sure I can't tell who told me." There was a little pause. Jemima was pondering on all she had heard. Suddenly she felt that Mrs Pearson's eyes were upon her, watching her; not with curiosity, but with a newly-awakened intelligence;--and yet she must ask one more question; but she tried to ask it in an indifferent, careless tone, handling the bonnet while she spoke. "How long is it since all this--all you have been telling me about--happened?" (Leonard was eight years old.) "Why--let me see. It was before I was married, and I was married three years, and poor dear Pearson has been deceased five--I should say going on for nine years this summer. Blush roses would become your complexion, perhaps, better than these lilacs," said she, as with superficial observation she watched Jemima turning the bonnet round and round on her hand--the bonnet that her dizzy eyes did not see. "Thank you. It is very pretty. But I don't want a bonnet. I beg your pardon for taking up your time." And with an abrupt bow to the discomfited Mrs Pearson, she was out and away in the open air, threading her way with instinctive energy along the crowded street. Suddenly she turned round, and went back to Mrs Pearson's with even more rapidity than she had been walking away from the house. "I have changed my mind," said she, as she came, breathless, up into the show-room. "I will take the bonnet. How much is it?" "Allow me to change the flowers; it can be done in an instant, and then you can see if you would not prefer the roses; but with either foliage it is a lovely little bonnet," said Mrs Pearson, holding it up admiringly on her hand. "Oh! never mind the flowers--yes! change them to roses." And she stood by, agitated (Mrs Pearson thought with impatience), all the time the milliner was making the alteration with skilful, busy haste. "By the way," said Jemima, when she saw the last touches were being given, and that she must not delay executing the purpose which was the real cause of her return--"Papa, I am sure, would not like your connecting Mrs Denbigh's name with such a--story as you have been telling me."