within the
house, and the servant was closing the door; then the footman came
down the steps, sprang up to his place, and the carriage rolled away.

She went on to her pupil's residence, and, quietly as she could, asked,
upon the first opportunity, her question.

"A lady who was assisted up the steps? Oh yes, I know whom you mean; it
is Mrs. Ward Heathcote," replied the girl-pupil. "Isn't she too lovely!
Did you see her face?"

"Yes. Does she live in that house?"

"I am delighted to say that she _does_. She used to live with her aunt,
Miss Teller, but it seems that she inherited this old house over here
from her grandfather, who died not long ago, and she has taken a fancy
to live in it. Of course _I_ think all her fancies are seraphic, and
principally this one, since it has brought her near _us_. I look at her
half the time; just gaze and gaze!" Cora was sixteen, and very pretty;
she talked in the dialect of her age and set. Launched now on a favorite
topic, she rushed on, while the teacher, with downcast eyes, listened,
and rolled and unrolled the sheet of music in her hands. Mrs.
Heathcote's beauty; Mrs. Heathcote's wealth; Mrs. Heathcote's wonderful
costumes; Mrs. Heathcote's romantic marriage, after a fall from her
carriage; Mrs. Heathcote's husband, "_chivalrously_ in the army, with a
pair of _eyes_, Miss Douglas, which, I do assure you, are--well,
_murderously_ beautiful is not a word to express it! Not that he
_cares_. The most _indifferent_ person! Still, if you could _see_ them,
you would _know_ what I mean." Cora told all that she knew, and more
than she knew. The two households had no acquaintance, Anne learned; the
school-girl had obtained her information from other sources. There
would, then, be no danger of discovery in that way. The silent listener
could not help listening while Cora said that Captain Heathcote had not
returned home since his first departure; that he had been seriously ill
somewhere in the West, but having recovered, had immediately returned to
his regiment without coming home on furlough, as others always did,
after an illness, or even the pretense of one, which conduct Cora
considered so "perfectly grand" that she wondered "the papers" did not
"blazon it aloft." At last even the school-girl's volubility and
adjectives were exhausted, and the monologue came to an end. Then the
teacher gave her lesson, and the words she had heard sounded in her ears
like the roar of the sea in a sto