“I do say.” Mrs. Gill handed her back her bodice with a self-righteous nod. “The jewelry he’s given that woman—and her not half as pretty as poor Mrs. P!—and the airs she’s taken on herself . . . and casting eyes on Major Gray and Major Garrick, and even the Colonel himself, poor man.”

“Was the Colonel very grieved?”

“He was shocked, of course.” Mrs. Gill started to lace her up again, neat and swift as a chambermaid. “You can’t not be, you know, even if you barely know someone, who’s killed sudden and terrible like that. Why, our Captain when we was stationed in Halifax, he robbed the men somethin’ cruel, holdin’ back their pay and sellin’ their rations to pocket the money himself, an’ havin’ my Fred flogged when he complained of it to the Colonel . . . yet when the Hurons killed him, I swear to you I cried, and not the only one in the regiment neither. And Mrs. P was a sweet young lady. The Colonel liked her by him. He had her ride with him in town like she was a queen. She’d stand at his side when he reviewed the soldiers, all pink and pretty—not like these Boston ladies who go about with faces like boot-scrapers as if a bit of rouge has got to be the Mark of the Devil, beggin’ your pardon, m’am, and to each ’er own I says. Even Mr. P would joke, that she’d become queen over the regiment. But still, you know, mum, Colonel Leslie is a soldier; and these things come and go. ’Tisn’t as if she thought he’d marry her, or either thought it would last. She flung herself at him, when all’s said—and he didn’t duck.”

“Well.” Primly, Abigail shook out her petticoat. “She sounds like a bit of a flirt to me, God rest her. If the Congregation didn’t frown upon gossip, I’d wonder if Mrs. Pentyre gave the Colonel cause to be jealous as well.”

“As to that, I’m sure I never saw sign of it.” Mrs. Gill sighed. “Even when the other young officers would be gallant—as they are, you know, being so far from home, how can you blame them?—she’d let them know it was the Colonel who had her heart, at least for the time being. And as for the Congregation,” she added with a grin, “if good men haven’t anything better to frown at in this sorry world, m’am, I say, Let ’em frown, eh? Gives their face a bit of exercise, not meaning no disrespect.”

Abigail permitted herself a smile. “And none taken, I’m sure.”