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‘It is difficult to say it in a few words,’ said Mrs. Hayward. ‘I have heard that though you have brought her up like your child, and been so tender to her, yet that she is no relation of yours.’

‘There are idle folk in every place,’ said Janet sententiously, ‘who have nothing to do but to stir up a’ the idle tales that ever were heard about the country-side.’

‘Do you mean, then, that this is an idle tale?’

The two antagonists watched each other with keen observation, and Janet saw that there was something like pleasure, or at least relief, in her adversary’s manner of putting the question. ‘It a’ depends on the sense it’s put in,’ she said.

‘We can’t go on fencing like this all day,’ cried Mrs. Hayward quickly. ‘I will tell you plainly what I want. My husband has seen the girl whom you call Joyce.’

‘Mem, you might keep a more civil tongue in your head,’ said Janet, ‘and ca’ her something else than the girl.’

‘What should I call her? I have not seen her. It is not with any will of my own that I am here. I hear her very highly spoken of, and your great kindness to her, and her—what is far more uncommon—gratitude to you.’