to
assist in getting out of the country."

"Ahem! out of pity," said the old lady. "Young ladies should be careful
how they show such pity--carrying on an intrigue. I can assure you
that at the time it was a question whether we ought not to banish
her from our society."

"But no one dared to pronounce the sentence of banishment," said the
Captain, "for fear of the Colonel, who had it in his power to refuse
the military music for the balls and open-air concerts in summer. And
this he certainly would have done if he had known what was hatching
against his granddaughter. But the ladies were more prudent; they
pulled poor Francis to pieces behind her back."

"With this result," added the elderly spinster, "that of her own
accord she almost entirely withdrew from our society."

"No, there is another reason," said the widow, with a significant
shake of the head; "it was not our treatment, but her own conscience
which pricked her after that affair with her coachman."

"Yes, you are quite right; that was a sad affair," assented the
Captain, to my painful surprise.

The honourable man, who had evidently combatted calumny and slander,
was now silenced. I wished to ask what had happened, but the words
stuck in my throat; I felt as if they would choke me. The postmaster,
however, who had just entered the room, put the question, which the
tongues of the ladies were quivering with impatience to answer.

"Unfortunately, no one knows the exact particulars," began the elderly
spinster, whose shrill, sharp voice made itself heard above the rest;
"but it is generally believed she wished to make her coachman elope
with her. Possibly she might have succeeded, but the man was already
married, and when that became known----"

"She pitched him off the box whilst the horses were going at a furious
rate," put in the old lady, with a demoniacal smile of pleasure.

"Others who are supposed to know, say she struck him dead with the
whip," added the little widow, who must have her say. "Horrible! most
horrible!" she continued, turning up her eyes with mock sentimentality.

Yes, horrible indeed, thought I, when both young ladies and old vie
with each other in a wicked desire to give the coup de grace to one
of their own sex who has erred, or, may be, only taken one false step
in life.

"I have been told," murmured another voice, "that she fought with him;
and the horses taking fright, he fell from the box under their feet."

"However i