as good as though the Monograms had
gone to the crusades. Julia Triplex was equal to her position, and
made the very most of it. She dispensed champagne and smiles, and made
everybody, including herself, believe that she was in love with her
husband. Lady Monogram had climbed to the top of the tree, and in that
position had been, of course, invaluable to her old friend. We must
give her her due and say that she had been fairly true to friendship
while Georgiana--behaved herself. She thought that Georgiana in going
to the Melmottes had not behaved herself, and therefore she had
determined to drop Georgiana. 'Heartless, false, purse-proud
creature,' Georgiana said to herself as she wrote the following letter
in humiliating agony.

DEAR LADY MONOGRAM,

I think you hardly understand my position. Of course you have cut
me. Haven't you? And of course I must feel it very much. You did
not use to be ill-natured, and I hardly think you can have become
so now when you have everything pleasant around you. I do not
think that I have done anything that should make an old friend
treat me in this way, and therefore I write to ask you to let me
see you. Of course it is because I am staying here. You know me
well enough to be sure that it can't be my own choice. Papa
arranged it all. If there is anything against these people, I
suppose papa does not know it. Of course they are not nice. Of
course they are not like anything that I have been used to. But
when papa told me that the house in Bruton Street was to be shut
up and that I was to come here, of course I did as I was bid. I
don't think an old friend like you, whom I have always liked more
than anybody else, ought to cut me for it. It's not about the
parties, but about yourself that I mind. I don't ask you to come
here, but if you will see me I can have the carriage and will go
to you.

Yours, as ever,

GEORGIANA LONGESTAFFE.

It was a troublesome letter to get written. Lady Monogram was her
junior in age and had once been lower than herself in social position.
In the early days of their friendship she had sometimes domineered
over Julia Triplex, and had been entreated by Julia, in reference to
balls here and routes there. The great Monogram marriage had been
accomplished very suddenly, and had taken place,--exalting Julia very
high,--just as Georgiana was beginning to allow her aspirations to
descend. It was