"Oh, I forfeit it, do I? (Come, Maria, we'll be going.) Very well, Mrs. Bell, I have forfeited your friendship, very well. And there's no young woman who oughtn't to be here, concealed on these premises. (Maria, stay looking out at the window for a minute.) There's no strange young woman here, oh, of course not. Poor Bell, honest man, only _fancies_ he has a visitor in the house." Here Mrs. Bell turned ghastly pale. Mrs. Butler saw that she had unexpectedly driven a nail home, and with fiendish glee pursued her advantage. "A visitor! oh, yes, _all the lodgings were full,_ packed! and it was so convenient to take in a visitor a--_friend._ Hunt the baker has been speaking about it. I didn't listen--I make it a point _never_ to listen to gossip--but Maria--Maria, you can come here now. Have the goodness, Maria, to tell Mrs. Bell exactly what Hunt said, when you went in to buy the brown loaf for me last Friday." "Oh, sister--I--I really don't remember." "Don't remember! Piddle dumpling! You remembered well enough when you came back all agog with the news. I reproved you for listening to idle gossip, and you read a sermon of Blair's on evil speaking aloud to me that night. You shall read sermon ten to-night. It's on lying. Well, Mrs. Bell, _I_ can repeat what my poor sister has forgotten. It was only to the effect that you and Bell must have had a windfall left you, and _he_ never knew a visitor treated so well as you treated yours. The dainty cakes you had to get her, and the fuss over her, and every blessed thing paid down for with silver of the realm. Well, well, sometimes it is _convenient_ to have a visitor. But now I must leave. Maria, we'll be going. You have got to get to your sermon on lying as soon as possible. Good-bye, Mrs. Bell. Perhaps you'll be able to tell some one else why the whole town is talking about Miss Hart--whoever Miss Hart was--and about Beatrice, and the wedding being put off--and Captain Bertram going off into high hysterics in--(Maria, you can go back to the window)--in a certain young lady's private room. Now I'm off. Come, Maria." CHAPTER XXX. GUARDIANS ARE NOT ALWAYS TO BE ENVIED.