ting to her feet; "but I think you cannot know what you are saying,
Lady Caroline. _I_ want my cousin to marry your daughter? I never
thought of such a thing--until yesterday!"

"And what made you think of it yesterday, pray? Please let us have no
heroics, no hysterics: these exhibitions of temper are so unseemly. What
made you think so yesterday?"

"Mr. Brand came here," said Janetta, suddenly growing very white, "and
told me that he cared for Margaret. I do not know how they had met. He
did not tell me. He--he--cares very much for her."

"Cares for her! What next? He came here--when? At Margaret's
lesson-time, I suppose?"

She saw from Janetta's face that her guess was correct.

"I need hardly say that Margaret will not come here again," said Lady
Caroline, rising and drawing her laces closely around her. "There is the
amount due to you, Miss Colwyn. I calculated it before I came out, and I
think you will find it all right. There is one more question I must
really ask before I go: there seems some uncertainty concerning the fate
of Mr. Brand's first wife; perhaps you can tell me whether she is alive
or dead?"

Poor Janetta scarcely knew what to say. But she told herself that truth
was always best.

"I believe he--he--is divorced from her," she stammered, knowing full
well how very condemnatory her words must sound in Lady Caroline's ear.
They certainly produced a considerable effect.

"_Divorced?_ And you introduced him to Margaret? Of course I know that a
_divorce_ is often received in society, and so on, but I always set my
face against the prevalent lax views of marriage, and I hoped that I had
brought up my daughter to do the same. I suppose"--satirically--"you did
not think it worth while to tell Margaret this little fact?"

"I did not know it then," Janetta forced herself to say.

"Indeed?" Lady Caroline's "indeed" was very crushing. "Well, either your
information or your discretion must have been very much at fault. I must
say, Miss Polehampton _now_ strikes me as a woman of great
discrimination of character. I will say good-morning, Miss Colwyn, and I
think the acquaintance between my daughter and yourself had better be
discontinued. It has certainly been, from beginning to end, an
unsuitable and disastrous friendship."

"Before you go, Lady Caroline, will you kindly take the envelope away
that you have left upon the table?" said Janetta, as haughtily as Lady
Caroline herself could have spoken. "I