That damnable woman! How dare she interfere and suggest that I am inappropriate company for her niece? Miss Walker confides in me after she comes over alone and spends a pleasant morning with me and we take a walk in the woods that her aunt seems to have changed her mind about our new friendship. She has tired of us Listers already after just two visits and warns Miss Walker away. What a changeable character! Does she not know who I am? I am perfectly adequate company for her meek mannered and uneducated niece who blushes at the very sight of me. Lead her astray indeed! She cannot possibly know that we kissed. We were on a walk far from any prying eyes. Someone must have been watching us and reported back to that chitter-chatterer of a woman, who has nothing to do but interfere in her niece’s life in the hopes of some pittance of her inheritance, living off her while pretending to be her companion and protector. The sooner I can be rid of her meddling influence the better. Inappropriate company indeed! I wager this is the first time poor little Miss Walker has ever had a decent conversation in her life that did not revolve around the weather and dresses and children and pitiful society. These nouveaux riches seem to forget how lucky they are when they could easily have been born to poverty, where little Miss Walker would have been working in the mills from five years old.

I must find out if someone told on us and shoot them! Unless… unless it was Miss Walker herself. Could she be so foolish as to confide in her silly aunt? If that is the case, then we are doomed never to exchange more than pleasantries at church. Lead her astray, she said! I believe leading astray is exactly what Miss Walker needs. She certainly does not resist my kisses on our second walk.