CHAPTER XIV.

VILLAGE GOSSIPS.

NOTHING occurred this day, the next, or the next, to bring confirmation of the suspicions awakened by Mr. Russell; nor was there any perceptible difference in Hannah's demeanour, except a slight melancholy and occasional abstraction, which excited the raillery of Rosina. Mr. Russell, resolved to let things take their course, absented himself from the White Cottage, nor did chance once throw him in the way of its inmates, during their daily walks.

An opportunity was one morning afforded Hannah of discovering what comments were made by the cottagers on what was passing in the rank above them. Her mother and sister had gone out, and she was sitting at the open window of her bedroom, writing to her youngest brother. She presently heard a countryfied female voice

accost the maid servant, who was probably standing at the kitchen window, with "Sarvant, Mrs. Betty."

"Good day, Mrs. Stokes," returned Betty. This Mrs. Stokes was the honest dame who at present had the honour of boarding and lodging Mr. Huntley.

"I made bold to step up," rejoined Mrs. Stokes," to see if mistress could give me one of them 'ere warm plaisters that did me so much good last winter. My master's got the rheumatiz terr❜ble bad indeed, and it keeps him from his work."

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Oh, then I can tell you, that I know to a certainty she has none of them left. Howsoever,

I'll tell her you've called when she comes back, for very likely she has something else that may do instead. She and the young ladies are out just now."

"Oh, are they so? Well, I dare say mistress can tell of something that 'll cure the rheumatiz, for I often says to master, I think she's pretty near as much of a doctor as Mr. Good. She and the young ladies is always very kind; howsomedever, they've never shewn their faces in our

cottage since my best rooms was took by the young gentleman that's going to marry Miss Hannah-"

"She going to be married to him?" cried Betty; "who knows that?"

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Sure, it's all settled," said Mrs. Stokes. "Why, I see them walk about together."

"Oh, there's nothing at all in that," cried Betty, very scornfully, "we've had a power of gentlemen here this summer, so that you could hardly turn round for them in our little parlour, and sometimes one has walked out with the young ladies and sometimes another; but for all that, there's nothing in it, and folks are very silly to set reports about, for as I said to Mr. Batt, last night in the shop, it's nothing on earth but flirtation."

Here, Hannah, who had heard quite enough, shut her casement with an intentional slam, but as the day was windy, the hint fell unnoticed on the ears of so thorough-bred a gossip as Mrs. Stokes, who responded

"Oh! is that all? Well, gentlefolks knows their own ways best, but to be sure I thought there was something in it. So Miss Hannah is n't

going to be married then, after all? Well, I don't know but what I'm glad to hear it, too; for our young squire has a temper!"

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No, sure?" said Betty, incredulously.

66 Oh, that's as true as death-he curses and swears at a fine rate when any thing goes cross with him; and so much as Mr. Russell has said to my master for being rather hasty with his tongue now and then, I thinks to myself sometimes, if he could but hear Mr. Huntley!"

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"Well!" rejoined Betty, I will say for him that he is always mighty soft and sweet when he is here, and very generous too—”

"Oh, he's open-handed enough with his money; I don't deny that. He pays reg'lar, once a week, and gave old Haddon a sovereign for tumbling off a hay-rick; yet for all that, one don't like to be called hard names for not knowing how to please a fine gentleman. Such a fuss as he made one day because I had thrown away a handful of old mignionette that had stood a week upon his chimney-piece! And it's a shame to see how he spends his Sundays-making little pictures of people and houses, and reading story books instead of his bible. Howsoever, that's no matter of

mine; but I'm glad in my heart he's not to have our Miss Hannah."

Mrs. Stokes trudged away, leaving Hannah utterly unable to finish a sentence in the middle of which she had been interrupted.

Huntley, to do him justice, was very cautious of offending the prejudices or awakening the suspicions of his mistress; yet Love, the blindest of deities while lapped in security, is as quicksighted as Argus when once alarmed. Hannah was now jealously alive to the smallest appearance of want of ease or sincerity in his manner, and tormented herself with conjectures on trifling expressions and actions which would formerly have escaped her notice. She observed that the headaches of which he occasionally complained, almost always happened to trouble him on Sunday mornings; she remarked that though he spoke openly of many friends and acquaintance with whom he was in the habit of associating when in London, he scarcely ever mentioned his mother or sister, and never except with indifference; and now that he felt secure of her affection, he allowed his satire to fall on the Hollands, the Goods, and even Mr.

VOL. II.

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