"Nonsense. I am so well prepared for misfortune by the frequent
contemplation of its possibility that I believe I can receive any ill
news with apparent equanimity and real resignation. Besides, when you
said yesterday at breakfast-time that you meant to give up the day
to making your drawers tidy, I was aware that some misfortune was
impending, though of course I could not judge of its magnitude. Is
the Highchester Bank broken?"
"Oh no, sister!" said Miss Phoebe, moving to a seat close to her
sister's on the sofa. "Have you really been thinking that! I wish I
had told you what I heard at the very first, if you've been fancying
that!"
"Take warning, Phoebe, and learn to have no concealments from me. I
did think we must be ruined, from your ways of going on: eating no
meat at dinner, and sighing continually. And now what is it?"
"I hardly know how to tell you, Dorothy. I really don't."
Miss Phoebe began to cry; Miss Browning took hold of her arm, and
gave her a little sharp shake.
"Cry as much as you like when you've told me; but don't cry now,
child, when you're keeping me on the tenter-hooks."
"Molly Gibson has lost her character, sister. That's it."
"Molly Gibson has done no such thing!" said Miss Browning
indignantly. "How dare you repeat such stories about poor Mary's
child? Never let me hear you say such things again."
"I can't help it. Mrs. Dawes told me; and she says it's all over the
town. I told her I did not believe a word of it. And I kept it from
you; and I think I should have been really ill if I'd kept it to
myself any longer. Oh, sister! what are you going to do?"
For Miss Browning had risen without speaking a word, and was leaving
the room in a stately and determined fashion.
"I'm going to put on my bonnet and things, and then I shall call upon
Mrs. Dawes, and confront her with her lies."
"Oh, don't call them lies, sister; it's such a strong, ugly word.
Please call them tallydiddles, for I don't believe she meant any
harm. Besides--besides--if they should turn out to be truth? Really,
sister, that's the weight on my mind; so many things sounded as if
they might be true."
"What things?" said Miss Browning, still standing with judicial
erectness of position in the middle of the floor.
"Why--one story was that Molly had given him a letter."
"Who's him? How am I to understand a story told in that silly way?"
Miss Browning sat down on the nearest chair, and made up her mind to
be patient if she could.