number of but loosely connected subjects.

Of precisely what, upon a certain memorable occasion, had taken place
between her brother, Sir Charles, and poor Theresa--causing the latter
to send up urgent signals of distress to which she, Miss Felicia,
instantly responded--she still was ignorant. Theresa had, she feared,
been just a wee bit flighty, leaving Damaris unattended while herself
mildly gadding. But such dereliction of duty was insufficient to account
for the arbitrary fashion in which she had been sent about her business,
literally--the word wasn't pretty--chucked out! Miss Felicia always
suspected there must be _something_, she would say _worse_--it sounded
harsh--but something _more_ than merely that. Her interpretations of
peculiar conduct were liable to run in terms of the heart. Had Theresa,
poor thing, by chance formed a hopeless attachment?--Hopeless, of course,
almost ludicrously so; yet what more natural, more comprehensible,
Charles being who and what he was? Not that he would, in the faintest
degree, lend himself to such misplaced affection. Of that he was
incapable. The bare idea was grotesque. He, of course, was guiltless.
But, assuming there _was_ a feeling on Theresa's side, wasn't she equally
guiltless? She could not help being fascinated.--Thus Miss Felicia was
bound to acquit both. Alike they left the court without a stain on their
respective characters.

Not for worlds would she ever dream of worrying Charles by attempting to
reintroduce poor Theresa to his notice. But with Damaris it was
different. The idea that any persons of her acquaintance were at sixes
and sevens, on bad terms, when, with a little good will on their part
and tactful effort upon hers, they might be on pleasant ones was to her
actively afflicting. To drop an old friend, or even one not
conspicuously friendly if bound to you by associations and habit,
appeared to her an offence against corporate humanity, an actual however
fractional lowering of the temperature of universal charity. The loss to
one was a loss to all--in some sort. Therefore did she run to adjust, to
smooth, to palliate.

Charles was away--it so neatly happened--and Theresa Bilson here, not, it
must be owned, altogether without Miss Felicia's connivance. If darling
Damaris still was possessed of a hatchet she must clearly be given, this
opportunity to bury it. To have that weapon safe underground would be,
from every point of view, so very much nicer.