Here Hannah appeared from her kitchen, curtsying deeply to Miss Taesie, who held a conversation with her at the gate; and finally went away, with her steady step and her riding-whip, having first plucked one of the late pale roses from the wall. Mrs Atheling came in with a degree of agitation not at all usual to the family mother. “The first time I ever saw her,” said Mrs Atheling, “when I was a young girl newly married, and she a proud young beauty just on the eve of the same. I remember her, in her hat and her riding-habit, pulling a rose from Aunt Bridget’s porch--and there it is again.” “Ma’am,” said Hannah, coming in to spread the table, “Miss Taesie never comes here, late or early, but she gathers a rose.” CHAPTER XIX. GOSSIP. “But, mamma, if she was just on the eve of the same, why is she only Miss Rivers now?” asked Marian, very curious on this subject of betrothments and marriages. “It is a very long story, my dear,” said Mrs Atheling. As a general principle, Mamma was not understood to have any special aversion to long stories, but she certainly showed no inclination whatever to enter into this. “So much the better if you will tell it, mamma,” said Agnes; and they came close to her, with their pretty bits of needlework, and their looks of interest; it was not in the heart of woman to refuse. “Well, my dears,” said Mrs Atheling, with a little reluctance, “somehow we seem to be brought into the very midst of it again, though we have scarcely heard their names for twenty years. This lady, though she is almost as old as he is, is niece to Lord Winterbourne. The old lord was only his stepbrother, and a great deal older than he--and Miss Anastasia was the only child of the old lord. You may suppose how disappointed he was, with all his great estates entailed, and the title--and nothing but a daughter; and everybody said, when the old lady died, that he would marry again.” “_Did_ he marry again?” said Marian, as Mamma came to a sudden and unexpected pause. “No, my dear; for then trouble came,” said Mrs Atheling. “Miss Anastasia was a beautiful young lady, always very proud, and very wise and sensible, but a great beauty for all that; and she was to be married to a young gentleman, a baronet and a very great man, out of Warwickshire. The present lord was then the Honourable Reginald Rivers, and dreadful wild. Somehow, I cannot tell how it was, he and Sir Frederick quarrelled, and then they fought; and after his wound that fine young gentleman fell into a wasting and a consumption, and died at twenty-five; and that is the reason why Miss Anastasia has never been married, and I am afraid, though it is so very wrong to say so, _hates_ Lord Winterbourne.” “Oh, mamma! I am sure I should, if I had been like her!” cried Marian, almost moved to tears. “No, my darling, not to hate him,” said Mrs Atheling, shaking her head, “or you would forget all you have been taught since you were a child.”