“Very true--_so_ true, Miss Willsie,” said Mrs Tavistock, who was a sentimental and sighing widow. “There is my niece, quite an example. I am sadly nervous, you know; and that rude girl will ‘prove’ to me, as she calls it, that no thief could get into the house, though I know they try the back-kitchen window every night.” “If there’s one thing I’m against,” said Miss Willsie, solemnly, “it’s that foolish fright about thieves--thieves! Bless me, what would the ragamuffins do here? A man may be a robber, but that’s no to say he’s an idiot; and a wise man would never put his life or his freedom in jeopardy for what he could get in Bellevue.” Mrs Tavistock was no match for Miss Willsie, so she prudently abstained from a rejoinder. A large old china basin full of wallflowers stood under a grim portrait, and between a couple of huge old silver candlesticks upon the mantelpiece; Miss Willsie’s ancient tea-service, at present glittering upon the table, was valuable and massive silver: nowhere else in Bellevue was there so much “plate” as in Killiecrankie Lodge; and this was perfectly well known to the nervous widow. “I am sure I wonder at your courage, Miss Willsie; but then you have a gentleman in the house, which makes a great difference,” said Mrs Tavistock, woefully. Mrs Tavistock was one of those proper and conscientious ladies who make a profession of their widowhood, and are perpetually executing a moral suttee to the edification of all beholders. “I was never nervous before. Ah, nobody knows what a difference it makes to me!” “Young folk are a troublesome handful. Where are the girls--what are they doing with Harry?” said Miss Willsie. “Harry’s a lad for any kind of antics, but you’ll no see Foggo demeaning himself. Foggo writes poems and letters to the papers: they tell me that in his own country he’s a very rising young man.” “He looks intellectual. What a pleasure, Miss Willsie, to you!” said the widow, with delightful sympathy. “If there’s one thing I like worse than another, it’s your writing young men,” said Miss Willsie, vehemently. “I lighted on a paper this very day, that the young leasing-maker had gotten from America, and what do you think I saw therein, but just a long account--everything about us--of my brother and me. My brother Robert Foggo, as decent a man as there is in the three kingdoms--and _me_! What do you think of that, Mrs Atheling?--even Harry in it, and the wallflowers! If it had not been for my brother, he never should have set foot in this house again.” “Oh dear, how interesting!” said the widow. Mrs Tavistock turned her eyes to the other end of the room almost with excitement. She had not the least objection, for her own part, in the full pomp of sables and sentiment, to figure at full length in the _Mississippi Gazette_. “And what was it for?” said Mrs Atheling, innocently; “for I thought it was only remarkable people that even the Americans put in the papers. Was it simply to annoy you?”