not tell anybody about him, and I think he
knows."

"Who is the man in the beard?" said Miss Wodehouse, with a gasp. She
grew very pale, and turned away her head and shivered visibly. "How
very cold it is!" she said, with her teeth chattering; "did you think
it was so cold? I--I don't know any men with beards; and it is so
strange of you to say I know everything that goes on in Carlingford.
Don't stop to speak to that little girl just now. Did you say she came
from Prickett's Lane? No. 10? It is very right to go to see the sick,
but, indeed, I don't approve of your attendance upon that poor woman,
Lucy. When I was a girl I dared not have gone away by myself as you
do, and she might not be a proper person. There is a carriage that I
don't know standing before Elsworthy's shop."

"But you have not told me yet about the man with the beard," said
Lucy, whose curiosity was excited. She looked at her sister keenly
with an investigating look, and poor Miss Wodehouse was fain to draw
her shawl close round her, and complain again of the cold.

"I told you I did not know," she said, with a complaining tone in her
voice. "It is strange you should think I knew; it looks as if you
thought me a gossip, Lucy. I wonder who those people can be coming out
of the carriage? My dear," said the elder sister, feeling within
herself that an attack upon the enemy's country was the best means of
meeting any sally--"I don't think you should go down to Prickett's
Lane just now. I saw Mr Wentworth pass a little while ago, and people
might say you went to meet each other. I can't keep people from
talking, Lucy, and you are both so young; and you know I spoke to you
before about your meeting so often. It will be a great deal better for
you to come with me to call on his aunts."

"Only that my poor patient wants me," said Lucy. "Must I not do my
duty to a poor woman who is dying, because Mr Wentworth is in
Prickett's Lane? There is no reason why I should be afraid of meeting
Mr Wentworth," said the young district-visitor, severely; and the
elder sister saw that Lucy spoke in a different tone from that in
which she had answered her before. She did not extinguish Miss
Wodehouse by a reference to the great work. She treated the matter
more as a personal one to-day; and a shadow--a very ghost of
irritation--was in Lucy's voice. The two crossed the street silently
after that to Elsworthy's, where a group of ladies were visible, who
had come out of th