I know how to manage. If the worst comes to the worst, I
know what to do! And I must write to him--not now--as soon as he's
well--he must come away. Even if it should turn out all a mistake, he
must come away!--I'll write to him, as soon as he's well, that he must
come away. And I'll question Cornelia again--ah! she's a handsome
girl!--it's well I got her up here, out of the way!--I'll find out more
from her. It may be a mistake, after all--it may, it may!"
While Aunt Margaret, sitting in her boudoir, thus took doubtful and
disconnected counsel with herself, Cornelia was left to manage her
little difficulties as best she might. Being tolerably quick in
observing, and putting things together, and unwilling to trust to
intuitive judgments of what was safe or unsafe in the moral atmosphere,
she set to work with all her wits, and not without some measure of
success, to fathom the secrets of the tantalizing freemasonry which
piqued her curiosity. By listening to all that was said, laughing when
others laughed, keeping silent when she was puzzled, comparing results
and drawing deductions, she presently began to understand a good deal
more than she had bargained for, was considerably shocked and disgusted,
and perhaps felt desirous to unlearn what she had learned.
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