saw her this morning she returns to street to day the old lady is come now do not make yourself uneasy with any uncle and permission was giving her ease this was the letter a most scandalous ill natured rumour has just reached me and i write dear to warn you against giving the least credit to it should it spread into the country depend upon it there is some mistake and that a day or two will clear it up � at any rate that henry is and in spite of a moment s thinks of nobody but you say not a word of it � hear nothing nothing whisper nothing till i write again i am sure it will be all hushed up and nothing proved but rush worth s folly if they are gone i would lay my life they are only gone to park and with them but why would not you let us come for you i wish you not repent it yours stood aghast as no scandalous ill natured rumour had reached her it was impossible for her to understand much of this strange letter she could only perceive that it must relate to street and mr and only conjecture that something very had just occurred in that quarter to draw the notice of the world and to excite ber jealousy in miss s apprehension if she heard it miss need not be alarmed for her she was only sorry for the parties concerned and for if the report should spread so far but she hoped it might not if the were gone themselves to as was to be inferred from what miss said it was not likely that any thing unpleasant should have preceded them or at least should make any impression as to mr she hoped it might give him a knowledge of his own disposition convince him that he was not capable of being steadily attached to any one woman in the world and shame him from any loi � er in addressing herself it was very strange she had begun to be really loved her and to fancy his affection for her something more than common � and his sister still said that he for nobody else yet there must have been some marked ay of attentions to her cousin there must have been om m park k since her correspondent was not of a sort to regard a slight one very uncomfortable she was and must continue till she heard from miss again it was impossible to the letter from her thoughts and she could not relieve herself by speaking of it to any human being miss need not have urged secrecy with so much warmth she might have trusted to her sense of what was due to her cousin the next day came and brought no second letter was disappointed she could still think of little else all the morning but when her father came back in the afternoon with the daily newspaper as usual she was so far from expecting any through such a channel that the subject was for a moment out of her head she was deep in other musing the remembrance of her first evening in that room of her father and his newspaper came across her no candle was now wanted the sun was yet an hour and a half above the horizon she felt that she had indeed been three months there and the sun s rays falling strongly into the parlour instead of cheering made her still more melancholy for sunshine appeared to her a totally different thing in a town and in the country here its power was only a glare a stifling sickly glare serving but to bring forward and dirt that might otherwise have slept there was neither health nor gaiety in sunshine in a town she sat in a blaze of oppressive heat in a cloud of moving dust and her eyes could only wander from the walls marked by her father s head to the table cut and by her brothers stood the tea board never thoroughly cleaned the cups and wiped in streaks the milk a mixture of floating in thin blue and the bread and butter growing every minute more greasy than ever s hands had first produced it her father read his newspaper and her mother lamented over the ragged ai pet as usual while the tea was in preparation and wished would mend it and was first roused by his calling out to her after ing and considering over a particular paragraph � s the name of your great cousins in town fan a moment s recollection enabled her to say rush worth sir park don t they live in le street f � yes sir there s the devil to pay among them tbat all there holding out the paper to her � much good may fine relations do you i don t know what sir thomas may think of such matters he be too much of the and fine gentleman to like his daughter the less but by g � if she belonged to m� i d give her the rope s end as long as i could stand over her a little for man and woman too would be the best way of preventing such things read to herself that it was with infinite concern the newspaper bad to announce to the world a matrimonial in the family of mr r of street the beautiful mrs r whose name had not long been in the lists of and who had promised to become so brilliant a leader in the fashionable world having quitted her s roof in company with the well known and mr c the intimate friend and associate of mr r and it was not known even to the editor of the newspaper whither they were gone it is a mistake sir said instantly it must be 