suspicion?'

It was plain, from her heightened colour, that her aunt did not choose
to be laughed at.

'What have you done?' said she, quite briskly; 'why--what have you
done?' and Aunt Becky had to consider just for a second or two, staring
straight at the young lady through the crimson damask curtains. 'You
have--you--you--why, what have you _done_? and she covered her confusion
by stooping down to adjust the heel of her slipper.

'Oh! it's delightful--plump little Lieutenant Puddock!' and the graver
her aunt looked the more irrepressibly she laughed; till that lady,
evidently much offended, took the young gentlewoman pretty roundly to
task.

'Well! I'll tell you what you have done,' said she, almost fiercely. 'As
absurd as he is, you have been twice as sweet upon him as he upon you;
and you have done your endeavour to fill his brain with the notion that
you are in love with him, young lady; and if you're not, you have acted,
I promise you, a most unscrupulous and unpardonable part by a most
honourable and well-bred gentleman--for that character I believe he
bears. Yes--you may laugh, Madam, how you please; but he's allowed, I
say, to be as honest, as true, as fine a gentleman as--as--'

'As ever surprised a weaver,' said the young lady, laughing till she
almost cried. In fact, she was showing in a new light, and becoming
quite a funny character upon this theme. And, indeed, this sort of
convulsion of laughing seemed so unaccountable on natural grounds to
Aunt Rebecca, that her irritation subsided into perplexity, and she
began to suspect that her extravagant merriment might mean possibly
something which she did not quite understand.

'Well, niece, when you have quite done laughing at nothing, you will,
perhaps, be so good as to hear me. I put it to you now, young lady, as
your relation and your friend, once for all, upon your sacred
honour--remember you're a Chattesworth--upon the honour of a
Chattesworth' (a favourite family form of adjuration on serious
occasions with Aunt Rebecca), 'do you like Lieutenant Puddock?'

It was now Miss Gertrude's turn to be nettled, and to remind her
visitor, by a sudden flush in her cheek and a flash from her eyes, that
she was, indeed, a Chattesworth; and with more disdain than, perhaps,
was quite called for, she repelled the soft suspicion.

'I protest, Madam,' said Miss Gertrude, ''tis _too_ bad. Truly, Madam,
it _is vastly_ vexatious to have to answer so strange and affr