Mrs. Hilliard was in the habit of referring unblushingly, and with a merry defiance of the contempt excited in the superior, highly cultivated people who proclaimed themselves far above gossip, to her diligence in collecting, and keenness in enjoying, the Friarton news of the day. Catherine did not often appreciate, in themselves, the promiscuous heaps of news cast down at her feet, for her to pick and choose from without much trouble on her part. But she did set wistful store on the merry heart of the gatherer and scatterer, and counted herself a dull girl by contrast. Not that Catherine was a dull young woman to speak with, she was rather pungent in a quiet way, as Fan Constable had described her. Yet with all her pungency she had a singleheartedness and magnanimity of character, a speedy inclination to own herself in the wrong, after speaking her mind, which generally forced her inferiors to respect as well as to pity her, and to receive her under their protection from the encroachments of others, even while they were taking advantage of her themselves. ‘You won’t enquire what great event has happened,’ said Mrs. Hilliard, hardly waiting till the servant had left the room. ‘I shall hear it presently,’ said Catherine composedly. ‘Then you shall have it _au naturel_, without any stuffing or garnishing, to punish a great lazybones of a girl who will not so much as get up a little curiosity to serve as a relish for my tit-bit.’ ‘Too many cooks spoil the kale,’ said Catherine. ‘I should only waste my small culinary talents by setting them up against yours.’ ‘I am not going to punish myself, in order to keep you in suspense any longer. I flatter myself, though you are a mouldy book-worm, you feel an agony of suspense, whatever you may pretend. As for myself, I am itching to create a sensation. Oliver Constable is going in for the mill and bakehouse—what do you think of that? What an anti-climax to Fan’s solemn gentility!’ ‘Going in for the mill and bakehouse?’ repeated Catherine, vaguely. ‘My dear Catherine, you are getting as pedantically precise in your English, and as stupid, as the rest of your clever people,’ protested Mrs. Hilliard, with lively impatience. ‘Don’t tell me going in for a thing is slang. Very soon, if you don’t take care, you will be mistaken for a school-mistress. You will be as incapable as a senior wrangler of speaking the language of ordinary life, or of taking in a simple statement. Oliver Constable has come home from Oxford to be a miller and baker, as old Peter Constable was before him—do you understand that?’ ‘Yes,’ said Catherine, with a faint smile. ‘What is your objection, Louisa?’