ago.'

'Of course; but it is a hard thing to know one has been fooled, cheated,
weighed in the balance and found wanting,' said Lesbia, scornfully.

She was taming down a little by this time, ashamed of that outbreak of
violent passion, feeling that she had revealed too much to Lady
Kirkbank.

'It was a caddish thing to do,' said Georgie; 'and this Hartfield is
just what I always thought him--an insufferable prig. However, my
sweetest girl, there is really nothing to lament in the matter. Your
sister has made a good alliance, which will score high in your favour
by-and-by, and you are going to marry a man who is three times as rich
as Lord Hartfield.'

'Rich, yes; and nothing but rich; while Lord Hartfield is a man of the
very highest standing, belongs to the flower of English nobility. Rich,
yes; Mr. Smithson is rich; but, as Lady Maulevrier says, He has made his
money heaven knows how.'

'Mr. Smithson has not made his money heaven knows how,' answered Lady
Kirkbank, indignantly. 'He has made it in cochineal, in iron, in
gunpowder, in coal, in all kinds of commodities. Everybody in the City
knows how he has made his money, and that he has a genius for turning
everything into gold. If the gold changes back into one of the baser
metals, it is only when Mr. Smithson has made all he wanted to make. And
now he has quite done with the City. The House is the only business of
his life; and he is becoming a power in the House. You have every reason
to be proud of your choice, Lesbia.'

'I will try to be proud of it,' said Lesbia, resolutely. 'I will not be
scorned and trampled upon by Mary.'

'She seemed a harmless kind of girl,' said Lady Kirkbank, as if she had
been talking of a housemaid.

'She is a designing minx,' exclaimed Lesbia, 'and has set her cap at
that man from the very beginning.'

'But she could not have known that he was Lord Hartfield.'

'No; but he was a man; and that was enough for her.'

From this time forward there was a change in Lady Lesbia's style and
manner--a change very much for the worse, as old-fashioned people
thought; but to the taste of some among Lady Kirkbank's set, the change
was an improvement. She was gayer than of old, gay with a reckless
vivacity, intensely eager for action and excitement, for cards and
racing, and all the strongest stimulants of fashionable life. Most
people ascribed this increased vivacity, this electric manner, to the
fact of her engagement to Horace Smith