Silence is most becoming for us both.

Continue to assure any persons, ill-advised and evil-minded enough to approach you--I trust they may prove but few--that you have never heard a word of this subject.

You will never--I can confidently promise you--hear one from me .-- I shall make it my duty to preach on the iniquity of back-biting, tale-bearing, scandal-mongering next Sunday, and put some to the blush, as I trust.

St.Paul will furnish me with more than one text eminently apposite .-- Let me think--let me see--hum--ah! yes." And he fell to quoting from the Pauline epistles in Greek--to the lively annoyance of his auditor, whose education, though solid did not include a knowledge of those languages vulgarly known as "dead." She naturally sought means to round on him.
"Might you not compromise yourself rather by such a sermon, James ?" she presently said.
"Compromise myself?
Certainly not .-- Pray, Jane, how ?" "By laying yourself open to the suspicion of a larger acquaintance with the origin of those rumours than you are willing to admit." The shaft went home.
"This is a mere attempt to draw me.

You are disingenuous." "Nothing of the sort," the lady declared.