'Yes, it all sounds very well' said Mrs. Leyburn at last, sighing, 'but, you know, Catherine isn't easy to manage.'
'Could you talk to her--find out a little?'
'Well, not to-day; I shall hardly see her. Doesn't it seem to you that when a girl takes up notions like Catherine's she hasn't time for thinking about the young men? Why, she's as full of business all day long as an egg's full of meat. Well, it was my poor Richard's doing--it was his doing, bless him! I am not going to say anything against it but it was different--once.'
'Yes, I know,' said Mrs. Thornburgh, thoughtfully. 'One had plenty of time, when you and I were young, to sit at home and think what one was going to wear, and how one would look, and whether he had been paying attention to any one else; and if he had, why; and all that. And now the young women are so superior. But the marrying has got to be done somehow all the same. What is she doing to-day?'
'Oh, she'll be busy all to-day and to-morrow; I hardly expect to see her till Saturday.'
'Why, what is the matter now?' she cried in her most aggrieved tones. 'My dear Mrs. Leyburn, one would think we had the cholera in the parish. Catherine just spoils the people.'
'Don't you remember,' said Mrs. Leyburn, staring in her turn, and drawing herself up a little, 'that to-morrow is Midsummer Day, and that Mary Backhouse is as bad as she can be?'
'Mary Backhouse! Why I had forgotten all about her!' cried the vicar's wife, with sudden remorse. And she sat pensively eyeing the carpet awhile.
Then she got what particulars she could out of Mrs. Leyburn. Catherine, it appeared, was at this moment at High Ghyll, was not to return till late and would be with the dying girl through the greater part of the following day, returning for an hour or two's rest in the afternoon, and staying in the evening till the twilight, in which the ghost always made her appearances, should have passed into night.
Mrs. Thornburgh listened to it all, her contriving mind working the while at railway speed on the facts presented to her.
'How do you get her home tomorrow night?' she asked, with sudden animation.
'Oh, we send our man Richard at ten. He takes a lantern if it's dark.'
Mrs. Thornburgh said no more. Her eyes and gestures were all alive again with energy and hope. She had given her shake to Mrs. Leyburn's mind. Much good might it do! But, after all, she had the poorest opinion of the widow's capacities as an ally.