gentle
interest in the far reflective corners. Even now, with a tumult of
things to consider, and a tempest of judgment to do it in, people
contrived to be positive about a quantity of things still pending. Sir
Parsley Sugarloaf had bought Miss Twemlow for 50,000 pounds, they said,
and he made her let her curls down so outrageous, because she was to be
married at Guildhall, with a guinea at the end of every hair. Miss
Faith would be dirt-cheap at all that money; but as for Miss Eliza, they
wished him better knowledge, which was sure to come, when it was no good
to him.

"What a corner of the world this is for gossip!" Mr. Shargeloes said,
pleasantly, to his Eliza, having heard from his cook, who desired no new
mistress, some few of the things said about him. "I am not such a fool
as to care what they say. But I am greatly surprised at one thing.
You know that I am a thorough Englishman; may I tell you what I think,
without offending you? It is a delicate matter, because it concerns a
relative of your own, my dear."

"I know what you mean. You will not offend me. Percival, I know how
straightforward you are, and how keen of perception. I have expected
this."

"And yet it seems presumptuous of me to say that you are all blind
here, from the highest to the lowest. Except indeed yourself, as I now
perceive. I will tell you my suspicions, or more than suspicions--my
firm belief--about your cousin, Mr. Carne. I can trust you to keep this
even from your father. Caryl Carne is a spy, in the pay of the French."

"I have long thought something, though not quite so bad as that,"
Miss Twemlow answered, calmly; "because he has behaved to us so very
strangely. My mother is his own father's sister, as you know, and yet he
has never dined with us more than once, and then he scarcely said a word
to any one. And he never yet has asked us to visit him at the castle;
though for that we can make all allowance, of course, because of its sad
condition. Then everybody thought he had taken to smuggling, and after
all his losses, no one blamed him, especially as all the Carnes had done
it, even when they were the owners of the land. But ever since poor
Mr. Cheeseman, our church-warden, tried to destroy himself with his own
rope, all the parish began to doubt about the smuggling, because it pays
so well and makes the people very cheerful. But from something he
had seen, my father felt quite certain that the true explanation was
smuggling."