Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 1.djvu/190

178 thought there was something odd about her.—You see what it is for women to affect to be different to other people." And once it was,—"I misdoubted that appearance of mystery from the very first—I thought there would no good come of it; but this is a sad, sad business to be sure!"

"Why mother, you said you didn't believe these tales," said Fergus.

"No more I do, my dear; but then, you know, there must be some foundation."

"The foundation is in the wickedness and falsehood of the world," said I, "and in the fact that Mr. Lawrence has been seen to go that way once or twice of an evening—and the village gossips say he goes to pay his addresses to the strange lady, and the scandal mongers have greedily seized the rumour, to make it the basis of their own infernal structure."

"Well, but Gilbert, there must be something in her manner to countenance such reports."