“You don’t mean that there is anything between Rosamond and Mr. Lydgate?” said Mrs. Bulstrode, rather mortified at finding out her own ignorance.
“Is it possible you don’t know, Harriet?”
“Oh, I go about so little; and I am not fond of gossip; I really never hear any. You see so many people that I don’t see. Your circle is rather different from ours.”
“Well, but your own niece and Mr. Bulstrode’s great favorite—and yours too, I am sure, Harriet! I thought, at one time, you meant him for Kate, when she is a little older.”
“I don’t believe there can be anything serious at present,” said Mrs. Bulstrode. “My brother would certainly have told me.”
“Well, people have different ways, but I understand that nobody can see Miss Vincy and Mr. Lydgate together without taking them to be engaged. However, it is not my business. Shall I put up the pattern of mittens?”
After this Mrs. Bulstrode drove to her niece with a mind newly weighted. She was herself handsomely dressed, but she noticed with a little more regret than usual that Rosamond, who was just come in and met her in walking-dress, was almost as expensively equipped.
Mrs. Bulstrode was a feminine smaller edition of her brother, and had none of her husband’s low-toned pallor. She had a good honest glance and used no circumlocution.