confidence than would have become
the other girls. "Mamma," she said, "you don't mean it!"

"I do mean it, Clara. Why should I not mean it?"

"She is the greatest vixen in all London."

"Oh, Clara!" said Augusta.

"And such a liar," said Mrs. Hittaway.

There came a look of pain across Lady Fawn's face, for Lady Fawn
believed in her eldest daughter. But yet she intended to fight her
ground on a matter so important to her as was this. "There is no word
in the English language," she said, "which conveys to me so little
of defined meaning as that word vixen. If you can, tell me what you
mean, Clara."

"Stop it, mamma."

"But why should I stop it,--even if I could?"

"You don't know her, mamma."

"She has visited at Fawn Court, more than once. She is a friend of
Lucy's."

"If she is a friend of Lucy Morris, mamma, Lucy Morris shall never
come here."

"But what has she done? I have never heard that she has behaved
improperly. What does it all mean? She goes out everywhere. I don't
think she has had any lovers. Frederic would be the last man in the
world to throw himself away upon an ill-conditioned young woman."

"Frederic can see just as far as some other men, and not a bit
farther. Of course she has an income,--for her life."

"I believe it is her own altogether, Clara."

"She says so, I don't doubt. I believe she is the greatest liar about
London. You find out about her jewels before she married poor Sir
Florian, and how much he had to pay for her; or rather, I'll find
out. If you want to know, mamma, you just ask her own aunt, Lady
Linlithgow."

"We all know, my dear, that Lady Linlithgow quarrelled with her."

"It's my belief that she is over head and ears in debt again. But
I'll learn. And when I have found out, I shall not scruple to tell
Frederic. Orlando will find out all about it." Orlando was the
Christian name of Mrs. Hittaway's husband. "Mr. Camperdown, I have
no doubt, knows all the ins and outs of her story. The long and the
short of it is this, mamma, that I've heard quite enough about Lady
Eustace to feel certain that Frederic would live to repent it."

"But what can we do?" said Lady Fawn.

"Break it off," said Mrs. Hittaway.

Her daughter's violence of speech had a most depressing effect upon
poor Lady Fawn. As has been said, she did believe in Mrs. Hittaway.
She knew that Mrs. Hittaway was conversant with the things of the
world, and heard tidings daily which never found their wa