I asked Lady Naselton about both of them one afternoon. Her ladyship, by the way, had been one of our earliest visitors, and had evinced from the first a strong desire to become my sponsor in Northshire society. She was middle-aged, bright, and modern--a thorough little cosmopolitan, with a marked absence in her deportment and mannerisms of anything bucolic or rural. I enjoyed talking to her, and this was her third visit. We were sitting out upon the lawn, drinking afternoon tea, and making the best of a brilliant October afternoon. A yellow gleam from the front of that oddly-shaped little house, flashing through the dark pine trees, brought it into my mind. It was only from one particular point in our garden that any part of it was visible at all. It chanced that I occupied that particular spot, and during a lull in the conversation it occurred to me to ask a question. “By the by,” I remarked, “our nearest neighbors have not yet been to see us?” “Your nearest neighbors!” Lady Naselton repeated. “Whom do you mean? There are a heap of us who live close together.” “I mean the woman who lives at that little shanty through the plantation,” I answered, inclining my head towards it. “It is a woman who lives there, isn’t it? I fancy that some one told me so, although I have not seen anything of her. Perhaps I was mistaken.” Lady Naselton lifted both her hands. There was positive relish in her tone when she spoke. The symptoms were unmistakable. Why do the nicest women enjoy shocking and being shocked? I could see that she was experiencing positive pleasure from my question. “My dear Miss Ffolliot!” she exclaimed. “My dear girl, don’t you really know anything about her? Hasn’t anybody told you anything?” I stifled an imaginary yawn in faint protest against her unbecoming exhilaration. I have not many weaknesses, but I hate scandal and scandal-mongering. All the same I was interested, although I did not care to gratify Lady Naselton by showing it. “Remember, that I have only been here a week or two,” I remarked; “certainly not long enough to have mastered the annals of the neighborhood. I have not asked any one before. No one has ever mentioned her name. Is there really anything worth hearing?” Lady Naselton looked down and brushed some crumbs from her lap with a delicately gloved hand. She was evidently an epicure in story-telling. She was trying to make it last out as long as possible. “Well, my dear girl, I should not like to tell you all that people say,” she began, slowly. “At the same time, as you are a stranger to the neighborhood, and, of course, know nothing about anybody, it is only my duty to put you on your guard. I do not know the particulars myself. I have never inquired. But she is not considered to be at all a proper person. There is something very dubious about her record.” “How deliciously vague!” I remarked, with involuntary irony. “Don’t you know anything more definite?”