e hastened up-stairs, divided between vexation about
Mr Leeson and regret at the news she had just heard. She put on her
dress rather hastily, and was conscious of a little ill-temper, for
which she was angry with herself; and the haste of her toilette, and
the excitement under which she laboured, aggravated unbecomingly that
redness of which Mrs Morgan was painfully sensible. She was not at all
pleased with her own appearance as she looked in the glass. Perhaps
that sense of looking not so well as usual brought back to her mind a
troublesome and painful idea, which recurred to her not unfrequently
when she was in any trouble. The real Rector to whom she was married
was so different from the ideal one who courted her; could it be
possible, if they had married in their youth instead of now, that her
husband would have been less open to the ill-natured suggestions of
the gossips in Carlingford, and less jealous of the interferences of
his young neighbour? It was hard to think that all the self-denial and
patience of the past had done more harm than good; but though she was
conscious of his defects, she was very loyal to him, and resolute to
stand by him whatever he might do or say; though Mrs Morgan's "womanly
instincts," which the Rector had quoted, were all on Mr Wentworth's
side, and convinced her of his innocence to start with. On the whole,
she was annoyed and uncomfortable; what with Mr Leeson's intrusion
(which had occurred three or four times before, and which Mrs Morgan
felt it her duty to check) and the Rector's uncharitableness, and her
own insufficient time to dress, and the disagreeable heightening of
her complexion, the Rector's wife felt in rather an unchristian frame
of mind. She did not look well, and she did not feel better. She was
terribly civil to the Curate when she went down-stairs, and snubbed
him in the most unqualified way when he too began to speak about Mr
Wentworth. "It does not seem to me to be at all a likely story," she
said, courageously, and took away Mr Leeson's breath.

"But I hear a very unfavourable general account," said the Rector, who
was almost equally surprised. "I hear he has been playing fast and loose
with that very pretty person, Miss Wodehouse, and that her friends begin
to be indignant. It is said that he has not been nearly so much there
lately, but, on the contrary, always going to Elsworthy's, and has
partly educated this little thing. My dear, one false step leads to
an