Why should people always talk of Catherine; Mrs.Thornburgh stood in awe of Catherine and had given her up in despair.

It was the other two whose fortunes, as possibly directed by her, filled her maternal heart with sympathetic emotion.
Suddenly in the midst of her satisfaction she had a rude shock.

What on earth was the vicar doing?
After they had got through better than anyone could have hoped, thanks to a discreet silence and Sarah's makeshifts, there was the master of the house pouring the whole tale of his wife's aspirations and disappointment into Mrs.Seaton's ear! If it were ever allowable to rush upon your husband at table and stop his mouth with a dinner napkin, Mrs.Thornburgh could at this moment have performed such a feat.

She nodded and coughed and fidgeted in vain! The vicar's confidences were the result of a fit of nervous exasperation.

Mrs.Seaton had just embarked upon an account of 'our charming time with Lord Fleckwood.' Now Lord Fleckwood was a distant cousin of Archdeacon Seaton, and the great magnate of the neighborhood--not, however, a very respectable magnate.