The girl at the gardener's cottage must, she did not doubt, agree wholly with Mr Dale; how otherwise would she have suffered the kiss in an open space in the park, where anybody might pass--and where, in fact (by the most perverse chance in the world), pretty Mistress Barbara herself passed at the moment when the thing occurred?
However, if the matter could ever have had the smallest interest for her--save in so far as it touched the reputation of the village and might afford an evil example to the village maidens--it could have none at all now, seeing that she set out the next day to London, to take her place as Maid of Honour to Her Royal Highness the Duchess, and would have as little leisure as inclination to think of Mr Simon Dale or of how he chose to amuse himself when he believed that none was watching.

Not that she had watched: her presence was the purest and most unwelcome chance.

Yet she could not but be glad to hear that the girl was soon to go back whence she came, to the great relief (she was sure) of Madame Dale and of her dear friends Lucy and Mary; to her love for whom nothing--no, nothing--should make any difference.

For the girl herself she wished no harm, but she conceived that her mother must be ill at ease concerning her.
It will be allowed that Mistress Barbara had the most of the argument if not the best.

Indeed, I found little to say, except that the village would be the worse by so much as the Duchess of York was the better for Mistress Barbara's departure; the civility won me nothing but the haughtiest curtsey and a taunt.
"Must you rehearse your pretty speeches on me before you venture them on your friends, sir ?" she asked.
"I am at your mercy, Mistress Barbara," I pleaded.