"
"That will do, Barker. You need not disturb the master; I came at this
early hour just for a little chat with your mistress and the children."
And then entering the parlor, she sat down opposite to Christian to take
breath.
Miss Gascoigne was really to be pitied. Mere gossip she enjoyed; it
was her native element, and she had plunged into this matter of Sir
Edwin Uniacke with undeniable eagerness. But now, when it might be
not gossip, but disgrace, her terror overpowered her. For disgrace,
discredit in the world's eye, was the only form the matter took to this
worldly woman, who rarely looked on things except on the outside.
Guilt, misery, and their opposites, which alone give strength to battle
with them, were things too deep to be fathomed in the slightest degree
by Miss Gascoigne.
Therefore, as her looks showed, she was not so much shocked as
simply frightened, and had come to the Lodge with a frantic notion of
hushing up the matter somehow, whatever it was. Her principal terror
was, not so much the sin itself, but that the world might hear of it.
"You see, Mrs. Grey, I am come again," said she, very earnestly. "In
spite of every thing, I have come back to advise with you. I am ready
to overlook everything, to try and conceal everything.
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