And,
above all, her own way with Catsford! Shall we see if she can get it?"

CHAPTER XVIII

THE NEW CAMPAIGN

Jenny had come back with her courage unbroken--and with her ambitions
unappeased, though it seemed that their direction had been in some
measure changed. Somehow Margaret Octon was now one of their principal
objects. It was not possible just now to see further into her mind, even
at a tolerably close view--a much closer one than her neighbors were
permitted to enjoy. It was even an appreciable time before Catsford
heard of Margaret Octon at all. The presence of the girl was not
obtruded, much less her name; nothing was said of her in the paragraph
that went to the paper. Jenny left Catsford to digest the fact of her
own return first.

It was enough to occupy the neighborhood's digestive faculties for many
days. It raised such various questions, on which different minds settled
with differing degrees of avidity. Questions of morality, of propriety,
of conventionality on the one hand--questions of charity, of policy, of
self-interest on the other. There were the party of principle and the
party of expediency, cutting across the lines of the party of propriety
and the party of charity. Some quoted Caesar's wife--when do they not?
Others maintained that an Englishman was innocent till he was proved
guilty--and _a fortiori_ a handsome, attractive, interesting, and
remarkably rich Englishwoman. It was contended by one faction that a
self-banishment of nearly three years was apology enough--if apology
were needed; by the other that Jenny had insolently spurned any effort
to "put herself right" with public opinion. To add to the complication,
people shifted their attitudes from day to day--either under influence,
as when they had been talked to by Mrs. Jepps or by Mr. Bindlecombe as
the case might be, or from the sheer pleasure of discussing the matter
over again from another point of view, and drawing out their neighbors
by advocating what, twenty-four hours earlier, they had condemned.

The climax came when the news of Margaret leaked out, as it was bound
soon to do, if only through the mouths of the servants at the Priory.
There was a pretty girl there, a girl of seventeen--whose name was
Octon--daughter, it was understood, of the late Mr. Leonard Octon of
Hatcham Ford; she was living with Miss Driver, as her friend or her
ward--at any rate, apparently, as a fixture. Some found a likeness
between Marga