And when, some hours after, Dr. and Mrs. Grey not appearing, she was called into Miss Gascoigne’s room, where that lady stood tying her bonnet-strings with a determined air, and expressing her intention of going at once to the Lodge, however inconvenient, still, all that Aunt Maria ventured to plead was that melancholy warning, generally unheeded by those who delight in playing with hot coals and edged tools, as Aunt Henrietta had done all her life, “Take care!”

In her walk to the Lodge, through the still, sweet autumn evening, with a fairy-like wreath of mist rising up above the low-lying meadows of the Avon, and climbing slowly up to the college towers, and the far-off sunset clouds, whose beauty she never noticed, Miss Gascoigne condescended to some passing conversation with Phillis, and elicited from her, without betraying any thing, as she thought, a good deal—­ namely, that Sir Edwin Uniacke was often seen walking up and down the avenue facing the Lodge, and that once or twice he had met and spoken to the children.

“But Mrs. Grey doesn’t like it, I think she wants to drop his acquaintance,” said the sharp Phillis, who was gaining quite as much information as she bestowed.

“Why, did they ever—­did she ever”—­and then some lingering spark of womanly feeling, womanly prudence, made Miss Gascoigne hesitate, and add with dignity.  “Yes, very likely Mrs. Grey may not choose his acquaintance.  He is not approved of by every body.”

“I know that.” said Phillis, meaningly.

The two women, the lady and the servant, exchanged looks.  Both were acute persons, and the judgment either passed on the other was keen and accurate.  Probably neither judged herself, or recognized the true root of her judgment upon the third person, unfortunate Christian.  “She has interfered with my management, and stolen the hearts of my children;” “she has annoyed me and resisted my authority?” would never have been given by either nurse or aunt as a reason for either their feelings or their actions; yet so it was.

Nevertheless, when in the hall of the Lodge they came suddenly face to face with Mrs. Grey, entering, hat in hand, from the door of the private garden, the only place where she ever walked alone now, they both started as if they had been detected in something wrong.  She looked so quiet and gentle, grave and sweet, modest as a girl and dignified as a young matron—­so perfectly unconscious of all that was being said or planned against her, that if these two malicious women had a conscience—­and they had, both of them—­they must have felt it smite them now.

“Miss Gascoigne, how kind of you to walk home with the children!  Papa and I would have come, but he was obliged to dine in Hall.  He will soon be free now, and will walk back with you.  Pray come in and rest; you look tired.”