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 or could not, speak clearly to the point. Seeing that Moore waited, and was resolved to hear something, she at last said,—

"Miss Keeldar spent a day at the Rectory about a week since. The evening came on very wintry, and we persuaded her to stay all night."

"And you and she curled your hair together?"

"How do you know that?"

"And then you chatted; and she told you"

It was not at curling-hair time; so you are not as wise as you think: and besides, she did't tell me."

"You slept together afterwards?"

"We occupied the same room and bed. We did not sleep much: we talked the whole night through."

"I'll be sworn you did! and then it all came out—tant pis. I would rather you had heard it from myself."

"You are quite wrong: she did not tell me what you suspect: she is not the person to proclaim such things; but yet I inferred something from parts of her discourse: I gathered more from rumour, and I made out the rest by instinct."

"But if she did not tell you that I wanted to marry her for the sake of her money, and that she refused me indignantly and scornfully (you need neither start nor blush; nor yet need you prick your trembling fingers with your needle: that is the plain truth, whether you like it or not)—if such was not the subject of her august confidences, on what point did they turn? You say you talked the whole night through: what about?"

"About things we never thorougly discussed before,