ears for baronets and
squires; and even a leading fashionable lawyer or two had been marked
by her as sufficient since that time. But now she was aware that
hitherto she had always fixed her price a little too high. On three
things she was still determined,--that she would not be poor, that she
would not be banished from London, and that she would not be an old
maid. 'Mamma,' she had often said, 'there's one thing certain. I shall
never do to be poor.' Lady Pomona had expressed full concurrence with
her child. 'And, mamma, to do as Sophia is doing would kill me. Fancy
having to live at Toodlam all one's life with George Whitstable!' Lady
Pomona had agreed to this also, though she thought that Toodlam Hall
was a very nice home for her elder daughter. 'And, mamma, I should
drive you and papa mad if I were to stay at home always. And what
would become of me when Dolly was master of everything?' Lady Pomona,
looking forward as well as she was able to the time at which she
should herself have departed, when her dower and dower-house would
have reverted to Dolly, acknowledged that Georgiana should provide
herself with a home of her own before that time.

And how was this to be done? Lovers with all the glories and all the
graces are supposed to be plentiful as blackberries by girls of
nineteen, but have been proved to be rare hothouse fruits by girls of
twenty-nine. Brehgert was rich, would live in London, and would be a
husband. People did such odd things now and 'lived them down,' that
she could see no reason why she should not do this and live this down.
Courage was the one thing necessary,--that and perseverance. She must
teach herself to talk about Brehgert as Lady Monogram did of Sir
Damask. She had plucked up so much courage as had enabled her to
declare her fate to her old friend,--remembering as she did so how in
days long past she and her friend Julia Triplex had scattered their
scorn upon some poor girl who had married a man with a Jewish name,--
whose grandfather had possibly been a Jew. 'Dear me,' said Lady
Monogram. 'Todd, Brehgert, and Goldsheiner! Mr Todd is--one of us, I
suppose.'

'Yes,' said Georgiana boldly, 'and Mr Brehgert is a Jew. His name is
Ezekiel Brehgert, and he is a Jew. You can say what you like about
it.'

'I don't say anything about it, my dear.'

'And you can think anything you like. Things are changed since you and
I were younger.'

'Very much changed, it appears,' said Lady Monogram.