“That’s all very well, but tongues will talk, you know, Mrs. Rossiter. I am sorry for both their sakes, because I thought that it would do very well.” “Very well indeed, if the young people, as you call them, liked each other.” “But I suppose it’s over now, Mrs. Rossiter?” “I really know nothing about it, Lady Deepbell.” Then the old woman, quite satisfied after this that the “alliance” had fallen to the ground, went on to the Tweeds. “I never thought it would come to much,” said Mrs. Tweed. “I don’t see why it shouldn’t,” said Matilda Tweed. “Georgiana Wanless is good-looking in a certain way; but they none of them have a penny, and Major Rossiter is quite a fashionable man.” The Tweeds were quite outside the Wanless pale; and it was the feeling of this that made Matilda love to talk about the second Miss Wanless by her Christian name. “I suppose he will go back to Alice now,” said Clara, the younger Tweed girl. “I don’t see that at all,” said Mrs. Tweed. “I never believed much in that story,” said Lady Deepbell. “Nor I either,” said Matilda. “He used to walk about with her, but what does that come to? The children were always with them. I never would believe that he was going to make so little of himself.” “But is it quite sure that all the affair at Brook Park will come to nothing, after the party and everything?” asked Mrs. Tweed. “Quite positive,” said Lady Deepbell authoritatively. “I am able to say certainly that that is all over.” Then she toddled off and went to the Simkinses. The rumour did not reach the doctor’s house on that day. The conviction that Major Rossiter had behaved badly to Alice,--that Alice had been utterly thrown over by the Wanless “alliance,” had been so strong, that even Lady Deepbell had not dared to go and probe wilfully that wound. The feeling in this respect had been so general that no one in Beetham had been hard-hearted enough to speak to Alice either of the triumph of Miss Wanless, or of the misconduct of the Major; and now Lady Deepbell was afraid to carry her story thither. It was the doctor himself who first brought the tidings to the house, and did not do this till some days after Lady Deepbell had been in the village. “You had better not say anything to Alice about it.” Such at first had been the doctor’s injunction to his wife. “One way or the other, it will only be a trouble to her.” Mrs. Dugdale, full of her secret, anxious to be obedient, thinking that the gentleman relieved from his second love, would be ready at once to be on again with his first, was so fluttered and fussy that Alice knew that there was something to be told. “You have got some great secret, mamma,” she said. “What secret, Alice?” “I know you have. Don’t wait for me to ask you to tell it. If it is to come, let it come.” “I’m not going to say anything.” “Very well, mamma. Then nothing shall be said.”