sportive action. And as her sister came back, she looked up and
shook her head at her, saying,--

"You gossiping Ailie, to go ripping up old grievances. I am going
to ask Miss Curtis not to let the story go any farther, now you have
relieved your mind of it."

"I did tell Lady Temple," said Alison; "I never think it right not
to let people know what sort of person they have to teach their
children."

And Grace, on feeling her way, discovered that Lady Temple had been
told the bare fact in Miss Williams's reserved and business-like
manner, but with nothing of the affair that had led to it. She
merely looked on it in the manner fully expressed by--"Ah, poor
thing; how sad for her!" as a shocking secret, never to be talked of
or thought about. And that voluntary detailed relation from Alison
could only be regarded as drawn forth by Grace's own individual power
of winning confidence, and the friendliness that had so long
subsisted between them. Nor indeed was the reserve regarding the
cause of the present reduced circumstances of the sisters at all
lessened; it was only known that their brother had ruined them by a
fraudulent speculation, and had then fled to the Continent, leaving
them burthened with the maintenance of his child, but that they
refused to believe in his guilt, and had thus incurred the
displeasure of other relatives and friends. Alison was utterly
silent about him. Ermine seemed to have a tender pleasure in
bringing in a reference to his ways as if all were well, and it were
a matter of course to speak of "Edward;" but it was plain that
Ermine's was an outspoken nature. This might, however, be only