Ann sugared her coffee with an air of detachment, and watched Robin
fidgeting out of the tail of her eye.
"You shouldn't listen to gossip, Maria," she reprimanded primly.
"Well, miss, 'tis true folks say you shouldn't believe all you hear, and
'tis early days to speak, seeing she's scarcely into her house yet, as you
may say."
"You give me an uncomfortable feeling that she spent the night on the
doorstep," observed Ann.
"Oh, no, miss," replied Maria, matter-of-factly. "She slept in her bed all
right last night. But maybe, for all that, it's true what folks are
saying," she added darkly. "I'd run out of sugar, so I just stepped round
to the grocer this evening after tea, and he told me 'twas all the tale in
the village that this Mrs. Hilyard isn't a widow at all, and some of them
think she's no better than she should be."
An ejaculation of annoyance broke from Robin.
"The tittle-tattle in these twopenny-halfpenny villages is almost past
believing!" he exclaimed angrily. "Here's an absolute new-comer arrives in
the district, and they've begun taking away the poor woman's character
already."
"Well, sir, of course I'm only speaking what I hear," replied Maria, who,
with all her good points--and they were many--had the true West Country
relish for any titbit of gossip, whether with or without foundation.
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