Juliette Ives rushed up to the house presently and poured the story of her lover’s treachery into the ears of her mother, who became quite indignant at the turn affairs were taking.
“I will go at once to the farmer’s wife, and give her a piece of my mind about her impudent niece,” she said, and she went immediately to Mrs. Robbins, who was in the pantry, labeling the nice jars of preserves she had made that day.
“I have come to complain of your niece, that bold factory girl, who has been making trouble between my daughter and the gentleman she’s engaged to,” she began.
Mrs. Robbins looked around in amazement.
“What has Pansy done, ma’am, to be called sech names?” she exclaimed, rather resentfully; and then Mrs. Ives poured out a garbled version of poor Pansy’s flirtation with Norman Wylde, making it appear that she was a bold, forward creature, who had actually forced the gentleman to pay her attention.
“Maybe she thinks he will marry her and make her a fine lady, but she’s mistaken,” she sneered. “It’s only a way he has of flirting, but it means nothing, as many a poor girl in Richmond and elsewhere knows to her cost. He’s very wild, but he promised my daughter, when she accepted him, that he would reform. I believe he was trying to do so, but when Pansy Laurens kept throwing herself in his way he couldn’t resist the temptation to make a fool of her. So when my daughter caught him kissing the girl, just now, in the hammock, she discarded him at once, and he’s so angry he’ll maybe fall into some mischief that will make Pansy Laurens rue the day she ever saw him. If I were you, Mrs. Robbins, I’d send the girl home to her mother at once,” she advised eagerly.
Mrs. Robbins sat silent, gravely cogitating. She was a large, fleshy woman, good-natured, and slow to anger. It did not occur to her to fly into a passion and resent Mrs. Ives’ harsh opinion of Pansy.
On the contrary, to her calm, equable nature, it seemed best to weigh the pros and cons in the case. Besides, Pansy was her husband’s niece, not hers, and she had no special fondness for the girl, whom she had never seen till this summer.
Mrs. Ives watched her closely, and, seeing how quietly she had taken everything, took heart to continue pouring out her venom.
“I’m afraid that girl is going to make you lots of trouble,” she ventured. “She will want to hang on to Mr. Wylde, of course.”
Mrs. Robbins turned her large, ruminating eyes on the lady’s face, and remarked:
“Perhaps he means fair. Rich men have married poor geerls before now. And Pansy Laurens is a good-looking geerl—as pritty as your Jule, I think, ma’am.”
Mrs. Ives grew quite red in the face with anger, but she restrained herself, hoping to mold the simple-minded woman to her will. Shaking her head vehemently, she replied:
“Ah, you don’t know the Wyldes! They are the proudest people in Richmond, rich and fashionable, and belong to one of the oldest families in Virginia. All of them have been professional men, and they consider working people as no better than their servants. If Norman Wylde was fool enough to want to marry a mechanic’s daughter and a working girl, which you may be sure he isn’t, his folks would disinherit him, and never speak to him again.”
Mrs. Robbins shook her head and sighed.
“I hate to think of my husband’s niece a-being in sech a scrape. Ef she’s been bold and forrard, ma’am, I never noticed it.”
“Of course not. She was too sly,” sneered Mrs. Ives. “But I see you’re bound to take her part, Mrs. Robbins, and I’ll say no more, only this: If disgrace comes on your family through that audacious piece, remember I warned you.”
“I’ll talk to Mr. Robbins,” was the only answer from the woman of few words.