an!"
she had for him the finest of her chills: "She's the widow of a bishop."
She always felt, with the counter-clerk, that it was impossible
sufficiently to put it on; for what she wished to express to him was the
maximum of her contempt, and that element in her nature was confusedly
stored. "A bishop" was putting it on, but the counter-clerk's approaches
were vile. The night, after this, when, in the fulness of time, Mrs.
Jordan mentioned the grand long talks, the girl at last brought out:
"Should _I_ see them?--I mean if I _were_ to give up everything for you."

Mrs. Jordan at this became most arch. "I'd send you to all the
bachelors!"

Our young lady could be reminded by such a remark that she usually struck
her friend as pretty. "Do _they_ have their flowers?"

"Oceans. And they're the most particular." Oh it was a wonderful world.
"You should see Lord Rye's."

"His flowers?"

"Yes, and his letters. He writes me pages on pages--with the most
adorable little drawings and plans. You should see his diagrams!"

CHAPTER VIII

The girl had in course of time every opportunity to inspect these
documents, and they a little disappointed her; but in the mean while
there had been more talk, and it had led to her saying, as if her
friend's guarantee of a life of elegance were not quite definite: "Well,
I see every one at _my_ place."

"Every one?"

"Lots of swells. They flock. They live, you know, all round, and the
place is filled with all the smart people, all the fast people, those
whose names are in the papers--mamma has still The Morning Post--and who
come up for the season."

Mrs. Jordan took this in with complete intelligence. "Yes, and I dare
say it's some of your people that _I_ do."

Her companion assented, but discriminated. "I doubt if you 'do' them as
much as I! Their affairs, their appointments and arrangements, their
little games and secrets and vices--those things all pass before me."

This was a picture that could make a clergyman's widow not imperceptibly
gasp; it was in intention moreover something of a retort to the thousand
tulips. "Their vices? Have they got vices?"

Our young critic even more overtly stared then with a touch of contempt
in her amusement: "Haven't you found _that_ out?" The homes of luxury
then hadn't so much to give. "_I_ find out everything."

Mrs. Jordan, at bottom a very meek person, was visibly struck. "I see.
You do 'have' them."

"Oh I d