Mrs. Prency had occasion
to leave the room for an instant soon after, and Jane lifted her head
and said,--
"Who would have thought, Miss, that that young man was going to be so
good, and all of a sudden, too?"
"He always was good," said Eleanor, "that is, until now."
"I'm sorry I mentioned it, ma'am, but I s'pose he won't be as wild as
he and some of the young men about this town have been."
"What do you mean by wild? Do you mean to say that he ever was wild in
any way?"
"Oh, perhaps not," said the unfortunate sewing-girl, wishing herself
anywhere else as she tried to find some method of escaping from the
unfortunate remark.
"What do you mean, then? Tell me: can't you speak?"
"Oh, only you know, ma'am, some of the nicest young men in town come
down to the hotel nights to chat, and they take a glass of wine once in
a while, and smoke, and have a good time, and--"
Eleanor looked at Jane very sharply, but the sewing-girl's face was
averted, so that questioning looks could elicit no answers. Eleanor's
gaze, however, continued to be fixed. She was obliged to admit to
herself, as she had said to her mother several days before, that Jane
had a not unsightly face and quite a fine figure. She had heard that
there were sometimes "great larks," as the young men called them, at
the village hotel, and she wondered how much the underlings of the
establishment could know about them, and what stories they could tell.
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