ould have
happened. I never cared about that man from the first. There was always
something in the look of his eyes: I told Eustace before anything
happened--something about the corner of his eyes. I did not like it when
I heard you had seen so much of him in town. And Eustace said then, 'I
hope your mother has made all the necessary inquiries.' I did not like
to say: 'Oh, mamma never makes any inquiries!' but I am sure I might
have said so. And this is what it has come to! Chatty's ruin,--yes, it
is Chatty's ruin, whatever you may say. Who will ever look at her,--a
girl who has been married and yet isn't married? She will never find any
one. She will just have to live with you, like two old cats in a little
country town, as Eustace says."

"If Mr. Thynne calls your mother an old cat, you should have better
taste than to repeat it," said Mrs. Warrender; "I hope he is not so
vulgar, Minnie, nor you so heartless."

"Vulgar! Eustace! The Thynnes are just the best bred people in the
world. I don't know what you mean. A couple of old ladies living in a
little place, and gossiping about everything,--everybody has the same
opinion. And this is just what it comes to, when no attention is paid.
And they say you have actually let him come here, let Chatty meet him,
to take away every scrap of respect that people might have had. He never
heard of such a mistake, Eustace says, it shows such a want of knowledge
of the world."

"This is going too far, Minnie; understand, once for all, that what
Eustace Thynne says is not of the least importance to me, and that I
think his comments most inappropriate. Poor Dick is going off to
California to-morrow. He is going to get his divorce."

Minnie gave a scream which made the thinly built London house ring, and
clasped her hands. "A DIVORCE!" she cried; "it only wanted this. Eustace
said that was what it would come to. And you would let your daughter
marry a man who has been divorced!"

Minnie spoke in such a tone of injured majesty that Mrs. Warrender was
almost cowed, for it cannot be denied that this speech struck an echo
in her own heart. The word was a word of shame. She did not know how to
answer; that her Chatty, her child who had come so much more close to
her of late, should be placed in any position which was not of good
report, that the shadow of any stain should be upon her simple head,
was grievous beyond all description to her mother. And she was far
from being an emancipat