more than is good for her. She's getting fond of it, you know; anything
that'll excite her; and ladies, can get all sorts of things, worse for
them a dozen times than what poor folks take. They say she doesn't know
what she's saying often."

"Dear, dear!" cried Ann Holland, in a sorrowful voice; "it can't be
true, and Mr. Chantrey away! She's such a sweet pleasant-spoken young
lady; I could never think it of her. He brought her here the very first
week after they came to Upton, and she sat in that very chair you're set
on, Mrs. Brown, and I thought her the prettiest picture I'd seen for
many a year; and so did he, I'm sure. It can't be true, and him such a
good man, and such a preacher as he is, with all the gentry round coming
in their carnages to church."

"Well, it mayn't be true," answered Mrs. Brown, slowly, as if the
arguments used by Ann Holland were almost weighty enough to outbalance
the cook's evidence; "I hope it isn't true, I'm sure. But they say at
Bolton Villa it's a awful lonely life she do lead without Master
Charlie, and Mrs. Bolton away so much. It 'ud give me the horrors, I
know, to live in that house with all those white plaster men and women
as big as life, standing everywhere about staring at you with blind
eyes. I should want something to keep up my spirits. But I'm sure nobody
could be sorrier than me if it turned out to be true."

"Sorry!" exclaimed Ann Holland, "why, I'd cut my right hand off to
prevent it being true. No words can tell how good Mr. Chantrey's been to
me. Everybody knows what my poor brother is, and how he'll drink and
drink for weeks together. Well, Mr. Chantrey's turned in here of an
evening, and if Richard was away at the Upton Arms, he's gone after him
into the very bar-room itself, and brought him home, just guiding him