Mary, who was known to all the country side, and who could do nothing
secretly, seldom spoke of the affairs of her neighbours. Whether she was
by nature a little taciturn, or whether her blindness, before which so
much passed unobserved, which cut her off from the possibility of
forming a judgment, had increased her natural modesty and diffidence,
she drew back into silence where others were discussed. But the actual
difficulties of living, which she daily and silently surmounted, brought
her so closely into touch with reality that she invariably saw, not the
fault or its circumstances, but the practical difficulties issuing from
it. But she had unthinkingly stumbled upon the scandal, and she went on,
"I was sorry to hear of Jane Evans forgetting herself like she has."

"Poor girl," said Anne; "she seems so certain that it'll last. What was
so sad to me, was that a girl brought up as she was by her grandmother
should have so little sense of her position."

"She's happy, I suppose," said Mary, "and there's no need to look
further. She'll find it hard to earn a living if he gets tired of her."

"He's not an ill-natured man," said Anne. "You feel as though if he'd
been brought up to have a respect for good behaviour he wouldn't have
got loose so easily. He thinks he's doing a generous thing, and giving
Jane a good time, without thinking what the result must be to her good
character. He doesn't like to see people unhappy, as he calls
unhappiness. He hasn't learnt the results of sin in his own experience,
and won't look at them in others. He kept on telling me she'd got a
servant of her own, and needn't do anything but fancy-work. They'd
neither of them hear anything I could say. I can't understand how they
came to know one another at the beginning. It seems to have come about
without anyone's knowing till it was too late."