heroines who live through it all, and are true to the end.
There are many pseudo-heroines who intend to do so, but break down.
The pseudo-heroine generally breaks down when young Smith,--not so
very young,--has been taken in as a partner by Messrs. Smith and
Walker, and comes in her way, in want of a wife. The persecution is,
at any rate, so often efficacious as to make fathers and mothers feel
it to be their duty to use it. It need not be said here how high
above the ways of the Browns soared the ideas of the Marchioness of
Kingsbury. But she felt that it would be her duty to resort to the
measures which they would have adopted, and she was determined that
the Marquis should do the same. A terrible evil, an incurable evil,
had already been inflicted. Many people, alas, would know that Lady
Frances had disgraced herself. She, the Marchioness, had been unable
to keep the secret from her own sister, Lady Persiflage, and Lady
Persiflage would undoubtedly tell it to others. Her own lady's
maid knew it. The Marquis himself was the most indiscreet of men.
Hampstead would see no cause for secrecy. Roden would, of course,
boast of it all through the Post Office. The letter-carriers who
attended upon Park Lane would have talked the matter over with the
footmen at the area gate. There could be no hope of secrecy. All the
young marquises and unmarried earls would know that Lady Frances
Trafford was in love with the "postman." But time, and care, and
strict precaution might prevent the final misery of a marriage.
Then, if the Marquis would be generous, some young Earl, or at least
a Baron, might be induced to forget the "postman," and to take
the noble lily, soiled, indeed, but made gracious by gilding. Her
darlings must suffer. Any excess of money given would be at their
cost. But anything would be better than a Post Office clerk for a
brother-in-law.

Such were the views as to their future life with which the
Marchioness intended to accompany her stepdaughter to their Saxon
residence. The Marquis, with less of a fixed purpose, was inclined in
the same way. "I quite agree that they should be separated;--quite,"
he said. "It mustn't be heard of;--certainly not; certainly not. Not
a shilling,--unless she behaves herself properly. Of course she will
have her fortune, but not to bestow it in such a manner as that."

His own idea was to see them all settled in the chateau, and then, if
possible, to hurry back to London before the se