se to law
if any lawyer would have suggested to her, with a probability of
success, that he could get more for her. No doubt she had been telling
her story to some attorney, in the hope that money might thus he
extracted, and had been dragging her Julie's name through the mud,
telling all she knew of that wretched Florentine story. As to all that
Lady Ongar had no doubt, and yet she wished to send the woman money!

There are services for which one is ready to give almost any amount of
money payment, if only one can be sure that that money payment will be
taken as sufficient recompense for the service in question. Sophie
Gordeloup had been useful. She had been very disagreeable, but she had
been useful. She had done things which nobody else could have done, and
she had done her work well. That she had been paid for her work over and
over again there was no doubt; but Lady Ongar was willing to give her
yet further payment, if only there might be an end of it. But she feared
to do this, dreading the nature and cunning of the little woman--lest
she should take such payment as an acknowledgment of services for which
secret compensation must be made, and should then proceed to further
threats. Thinking much of all this, Julie at last wrote to her Sophie as
follows:

Lady Ongar presents her compliments to Madam Gordeloup, and must
decline to see Madam Gordeloup again after what has passed. Lady Ongar
is very sorry to hear that Madam Gordeloup is in want of funds.
Whatever assistance Lady Ongar might have been willing to afford,
she now feels that she is prohibited from giving any by the allusion
which Madam Gordeloup has made to legal advice. If Madam Gordeloup
has legal demands on Lady Ongar which are said by a lawyer to be
valid, Lady Ongar would strongly recommend Madam Gordeloup to
enforce them.

Clavering Park, October, 186--.

This she wrote, acting altogether on her own judgment, and sent off by
return of post. She almost wept at her own cruelty after the letter was
gone, and greatly doubted her own discretion. But of whom could she have
asked advice? Could she have told all the story of Madam Gordeloup to
the rector or to the rector's wife? The letter, no doubt, was a discreet
letter, but she greatly doubted her own discretion, and when she
received her Sophie's rejoinder, she hardly dared to break the envelope.

Poor Sophie! Her Julie's letter nearly broke her heart. For si