CHAPTER XXII.
SPARE THE POOR CHILD'S BLUSHES.
It was Miss Peters who first spread the news.

She heard it whispered at the fishmonger's, spoken of aloud at the butcher's, and confirmed at the baker's.

She could doubt this combined testimony no longer, and hurried home to put on her best bonnet with the wallflowers in it, and go forth on a visiting tour.
Miss Peters was in the seventh heaven of delight.

To have news, and such news, to convey, would make her a welcome inmate that afternoon of every house in Northbury.

She was intensely anxious to go out and convey her news without being accompanied by her large sister, Mrs.Butler.In Mrs.
Butler's presence Miss Peters was only a shadow, and she had no wish to be a shadow on this occasion.
_She_ had heard the gossip, not Martha--why, therefore, should she tell Martha for the sole satisfaction of having it repeated by Martha in her own tiresome way to each neighbor she met, while she, poor Miss Peters, who had really got the information first-hand--for the baker who served the two families with bread was so absolutely reliable--could only nod her head and roll her eyes in confirmation.
Miss Peters resolved, therefore, to tell her news to Mrs.Butler last of all; and her object now was to slip softly out of doors without being heard by her sister.