It was so graciously condescending in Mrs. Euphrosyne Pursifer to
communicate to Mrs. Elizabeth Baker some few particulars in which
her aristocratic associates of St. Marks had grieved her by not
rising to her standard of womanly dignity and Christian duty, that
Mrs. Baker in turn was only too happy to reciprocate with a similar
confidence in regard to her intimate friends of Wesley Chapel.
It was this sudden lapsing of all restraint that made the waves of
gossip surge like sweeping billows.
And the flotsam that appeared most frequently of late on their
crests, and that was tossed most relentlessly hither and thither,
was Rachel Bond's and Harry Glen's conduct and relations to each
other.
The Consolidated Lint-scraping and Bandage-making Union was holding
a regular session, and gossip was at spring-tide.
"It is certainly queer," said Mrs. Tufis, one of her regulation
smiles illuminating her very artificial countenance; "it is singular
to the last degree that we don't have Miss Rachel Bond among us.
She is such a LOVELY girl. I am very, very fond of her, and her
heart is thoroughly in unison with our objects. It would seem
impossible for her to keep away."
All this with the acrid sub-flavor of irony and insincerity with
which an insincere woman can not help tainting even her most sincere
words.
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