re."

For a couple of days this was possible, but then came Mrs. Nicholas
Rawdon, and the subject was perforce opened. "It was a bad case," she
said, "but it is being settled as quickly and as quietly as possible. I
believe the man has entered into some sort of recognizance to keep the
peace, and has disappeared. No one will look for him. The gentry are
against pulling one another down in any way, and this affair they
don't want talked about. Being all of them married men, it isn't to be
expected, is it? Justice Manningham was very sorry for the little
lady, but he said also 'it was a bad precedent, and ought not to be
discussed.' And Squire Bentley said, 'If English gentlemen would marry
American women, they must put up with American women's ways,' and so on.
None of them think it prudent to approve Mrs. Mostyn's course. But they
won't get off as easy as they think. The women are standing up for her.
Did you ever hear anything like that? And I'll warrant some husbands are
none so easy in their minds, as my Nicholas said, 'Mrs. Mostyn had sown
seed that would be seen and heard tell of for many a long day.' Our
Lucy, I suspect, had more to do with the move than she will confess. She
got a lot of new, queer notions at college, and I do believe in my heart
she set the poor woman up to the business. John Thomas, of course, says
not a word, but he looks at Lucy in a very proud kind of way; and I'll
be bound he has got an object lesson he'll remember as long as he lives.
So has Nicholas, though he bluffs more than a little as to what he'd
do with a wife that got a running-away notion into her head. Bless you,
dear, they are all formulating their laws on the subject, and their
wives are smiling queerly at them, and holding their heads a bit higher
than usual. I've been doing it myself, so I know how they feel."

Thus, though very little was said in the newspapers about the affair,
the notoriety Mostyn dreaded was complete and thorough. It was the
private topic of conversation in every household. Men talked it over in
all the places where men met, and women hired the old Mostyn servants in
order to get the very surest and latest story of the poor wife's wrongs,
and then compared reports and even discussed the circumstances in their
own particular clubs.

At the Court, Tyrrel and Ethel tried to forget, and their own interests
were so many and so important that they usually succeeded; especially
after a few lines from Mrs. Denn