CHAPTER XIV.
JONATHAN'S STORE.
And where has Mrs.Acton been all this morning?
Off to the Hall, very soon after Grace had got away; and she rung at the side entrance, hard by the kitchen, most fortunately caught Sarah Stack about, and had a good long gossip with her; telling her, open-mouthed, all about Ben Burke having found a shawl of Mrs.Quarles's on the island; and how, it being very rotten, yes, and smelling foul, Ben had been fool enough to burn it; what a pity! how could the shawl have got there?
if it only could ha' spoken what it knew! And the bereaved gossips mourned together over secrets undivulged, and their evidence destroyed.

As to the crockery, for a miraculous once in life, Mrs.Acton held her tongue about a thing she knew, and said not a syllable concerning it.

Roger would be mad to lose the money.

Just at parting with her friend Mary Acton was going out by the wrong door, through the hall, but luckily did no more than turn the handle; or she never could have escaped bouncing in upon the lovers' interview, and thereby occasioning a chaos of confusion.

For, be it whispered, the step-dame was not a little jealous of her ready-made daughter's beauty, persisted in calling her a child, and treated her any thing but kindly and sisterly, as her full-formed woman's loveliness might properly have looked for.