‘No! Blessed Vargin!’ says Miss Ricketty, recoiling; she had, of course, been the first to hear of the mysterious stranger at the Cottage, and had, indeed, told the news to her brother, under promise of secrecy, that she knew he would not keep. Nor did she want him to keep it. How can you gossip unless you have someone to gossip with? That is why people spread scandals. ‘And what was he saying?’ asks she presently, when she has produced a little box of figs and given them to Jacky, with a view to keeping him quiet until she has got the last word of news out of Susan. ‘Nothing, I think,’ says Susan, running over mentally her late conversation with Wyndham. ‘He won’t have time to see father to-night, because he is going back to town by the evening train.’ ‘Is that what he says?’ Miss Ricketty gives her bonnet a push. ‘Faith, he’s full of smartness. An’ did he tell ye nothin’ at all?’ ‘Oh, it was I who told him everything,’ says Susan. ‘He wanted to know how the new curate was going on, for one thing, and——’ ‘If ’twas Misther Haldane he was askin’ afther so kindly, I could a’ tould him somethin’,’ says Miss Ricketty. ‘But never mind him! What else was Misther Wyndham sayin’?’ ‘There was not time to say anything,’ says Susan, laughing. ‘He was in a hurry, and so was I—at least, Jacky was; he wants you to give him two pennyworth of bull’s-eyes. Though, really, after those figs——’ ‘Miss Susan’—the old maid puts Susan’s last remark aside with an eloquent gesture—‘have ye heard anything sthrange about the Cottage lately?’ Susan starts, and Jacky comes to a dead set, the last fig between his finger and thumb. Jacky must be far gone indeed when, having anything edible between his fingers, he delays about putting it between his lips. ‘Ye have, I see,’ says Miss Ricketty. ‘I’m tould, me dear,’ looking behind her, and beside her, and to the door, and now, for even better security, putting up her opened palm to one side of her mouth, ‘that there’s a young—a’—she hesitates as if to choose a word, then comes to a safe conclusion—‘a faymale there,’ she says. ‘There’s a girl there, I think,’ says Susan nervously. ‘At least’—here Jacky looks at her appealingly, and she changes her sentence—‘someone says there is. A niece, or a friend of Mrs. Denis’s, I suppose.’ ‘Arrah! Suppose!’ says Miss Ricketty with considerable eloquence, but without committing herself. ‘Well, if not that,’ says Susan, who is full of her late romantic idea about a secret marriage between the unknown and Wyndham, ‘perhaps—perhaps Mr. Wyndham knows something about her.’ Miss Ricketty turns sharply, and looks at her. But the girl’s lovely, open, tranquil face betrays nothing but a soft enthusiasm. A sense of amusement fills Miss Ricketty’s breast. ‘Fegs, I’m thinkin’ ye’re on the right thrack,’ says she evenly. ‘You won’t say it again, Miss Ricketty, will you?’ says Susan; ‘but I have thought—at least, it has occurred to me—that perhaps she’s Mr. Wyndham’s wife.’