e news, my dear? Or shall we come to
the object of your visit at once?" So Miss Dulane opened the interview.

"Your tone and manner, my good friend, are no doubt provoked by the
report in the newspaper of this morning. In justice to you, I refuse to
believe the report." So Mrs. Newsham adopted her friend's suggestion.

"You kindness is thrown away, Elizabeth. The report is true."

"Matilda, you shock me!"

"Why?"

"At your age!"

"If _he_ doesn't object to my age, what does it matter to _you?_"

"Don't speak of that man!"

"Why not?"

"He is young enough to be your son; and he is marrying you--impudently,
undisguisedly marrying you--for your money!"

"And I am marrying him--impudently, undisguisedly marrying him--for his
rank."

"You needn't remind me, Matilda, that you are the daughter of a tailor."

"In a week or two more, Elizabeth, I shall remind you that I am the wife
of a nobleman's son."

"A younger son; don't forget that."

"A younger son, as you say. He finds the social position, and I find the
money--half a million at my own sole disposal. My future husband is a
good fellow in his way, and his future wife is another good fellow in
her way. To look at your grim face, one would suppose there were no such
things in the world as marriages of convenience."

"Not at your time of life. I tell you plainly, your marriage will be a
public scandal."

"That doesn't frighten us," Miss Dulane remarked. "We are resigned to
every ill-natured thing that our friends can say of us. In course of
time, the next nine days' wonder will claim public attention, and we
shall be forgotten. I shall be none the less on that account Lady
Howel Beaucourt. And my husband will be happy in the enjoyment of every
expensive taste which a poor man call gratify, for the first time in
his life. Have you any more objections to make? Don't hesitate to speak
plainly."

"I have a question to ask, my dear."

"Charmed, I am sure, to answer it--if I can."

"Am I right in supposing that Lord Howel Beaucourt is about half your
age?"

"Yes, dear; my future husband is as nearly as possible half as old as I
am."

Mrs. Newsham's uneasy virtue shuddered. "What a profanation of
marriage!" she exclaimed.

"Nothing of the sort," her friend pronounced positively. "Marriage, by
the law of England (as my lawyer tells me), is nothing but a contract.
Who ever heard of profaning a contract?"

"Call it what you please, Matilda. Do you expec