Miss Meadows pursued them at the same moment with broken protestations that they must forget it, she never meant to make mischief, &c., and the confusion was becoming worse confounded when Mr. Kendal emerged from the study, demanding what was the matter, to the great discomfiture of Maria, who began hushing Sophy, and making signs to Albinia that it would be dangerous for him to know anything about it. But Albinia was already exclaiming, ‘Here’s a champion wanting to do battle with Louisa Osborn in our cause. Oh, Edmund! our neighbours could find no way of accounting for my taking French leave, but by supposing that I took advantage of being shut in there, while poor little Maurice was squalling so furiously, to rifle your secrets, and detect something so shocking, that away I was fleeing to William in Canada.’ ‘Obliging,’ quietly said Mr. Kendal. ‘Now, dear Edmund--I know--for my sake--for everything’s sake, remember you are a family man, don’t take any notice.’ ‘I certainly shall take no notice of such folly,’ said Mr. Kendal, ‘and I wish that no one else should. What are you about, Sophia?’ ‘Tell mamma to let me go, papa,’ she exclaimed, ‘I must and will tell Louisa that I hate her baseness and hypocrisy, and then I’ll never speak to her again. Why will mamma laugh? It is very wicked of them.’ ‘Wrong in them, but laughing is the only way to treat it,’ said Mr. Kendal. ‘Go back to your sofa and forget it. Your aunt and I have heard Bayford reports before.’ Sophy obeyed unwillingly, she was far too much incensed to forget. On her aunt’s taking leave, and Mr. Kendal offering his escort up the hill, she rose up again, and would have perpetrated a denunciation by letter, had not Albinia seriously argued with her, and finding ridicule, expediency, and Christian forgiveness all fail of hitting the mark, said, ‘I don’t know with what face you could attack Louisa, when you helped her to persecute poor Genevieve because you thought she had an instrument of torture in her drawer.’ ‘It was not I who said that,’ said Sophy, blushing. ‘You took part with those who did. And poor Genevieve was a much more defenceless victim than papa or myself.’ ‘I would not do so now.’ ‘It does not take much individual blackness of heart to work up a fine promising slander. A surmise made in jest is repeated in earnest, and all the other tale-bearers think they are telling simple facts. Depend upon it, the story did not get off from the Osborns by any means as it came back to Aunt Maria.’ ‘I should like to know.’ ‘Don’t let us make it any worse; and above all, do not let us tell Lucy.’ ‘Oh, no!’ said Sophy, emphatically. To Albinia’s surprise no innuendo from Mrs. or Miss Meadows ever referred to her management having caused Sophy’s misfortune, and she secretly attributed this silence to Mr. Kendal’s having escorted his sister-in-law to her own house.