“I have just returned,” said the lady; “I have not been in the house half an hour, and my father told me. You do not know, but the gentleman who has lived so long in the Ware house, the caretaker, is my father, and--and my mother was Hyacinthus's mother; her second marriage was secret, and he would never tell. My father and my mother were cousins. Hyacinthus never told.” She turned to Sarah. “He would not even tell you, when he knew that you must have seen or heard something that made you believe otherwise, because--because of our mother. No, he would not even tell you.”
She spoke again with a great impetuosity which made her seem very young, although she was not so very young. “I have been kept away all my life,” she said, “all my life from here, that the memory of our mother should not suffer, and now I come to tell, myself, and you will marry my brother, whom you must love better than that gentleman. You must. Will you not? Tell me that you will,” said she, “for Hyacinthus is breaking his heart, and he loves you.”
Before anything further could be said John Mangam rose, and walked rapidly down the gravel walk out of the yard and down the street.
Sarah felt dizzy. She bent lower as she sat and held her head in her two hands, and the strange lady came on the other side of her, and she was enveloped in a fragrance of some foreign perfume.
“My brother has been almost mad,” she whispered in her ear, “and I have just found out what the trouble was. He would not tell on account of our mother, but poor mother is dead and gone.”
Then the old woman on the other side raised her voice unexpectedly, and she spoke to her granddaughter, Mrs. Lynn. “You are a fool,” said she, “if you wouldn't rather hev Serrah merry a man like Hyacinthus Ware, with all his money and livin' in the biggest house in Adams, than a man like John Mangam, who sets an' sets an' sets the hull evenin' and never opens his mouth to say boo to a goose, and beside bein' threatened with a suit for breach.”
“I don't care who she marries, as long as she is happy,” said Sarah's mother.
“Well, I'm goin',” said the old woman. “I left my winders open, and I think there's a shower comin' up.”
She rose, and Mrs. Wilford Biggs at the same time. Sarah's mother went into the house.