I am tender for your reputation, mistress, and I'll not have you shunning daylight like the guilty thing ye know yourself to be." "'Tis false, madam," said Hortensia, with indignation.

"Your ladyship knows it to be false." "Harkee, ninny, if you'd have the town believe it false, you'll show yourself--show that ye have no cause for shame, no cause to hide you from the eyes of honest folk.

Come, girl; bid your woman get your hood and tippet.

The carriage stays for us." To Hortensia her ladyship's seemed, after all, a good argument.

Did she hide, what must the town think but that it confirmed the talk that she made no doubt was going round already.