pers, but knew that they
were devilish. And so she would have thought if she had heard them.
"You're going to catch it, Lady George," Jack had said. "There's
somebody else will catch something if she makes herself disagreeable,"
Lady George had answered. "I wish I could be invisible and hear it,"
had been Jack's last words.

"My dear Mary," said Lady Susanna, as soon as they were seated, "you
are very young."

"That's a fault that will mend of itself."

"Too quickly, as you will soon find; but in the meantime, as you are a
married woman, should you not be careful to guard against the
indiscretions of youth?"

"Well, yes; I suppose I ought," said Mary, after a moment of mock
consideration. "But then if I were unmarried I ought to do just the
same. It's a kind of thing that is a matter of course without talking
about it." She had firmly made up her mind that she would submit in no
degree to Lady Susanna, and take from her no scolding. Indeed, she had
come to a firm resolve long since that she would be scolded by no one
but her husband--and by him as little as possible. Now she was angry
with him because he had sent this woman to watch her, and was
determined that he should know that, though she would submit to him,
she would not submit to his sister. The moment for asserting herself
had now come.

"A young married woman," said the duenna, "owes it to her husband to be
peculiarly careful. She has his happiness and his honour in her hands."

"And he has hers. It seems to me that all these things are matters of
course."

"They should be, certainly," said Lady Susanna, hardly knowing how to
go on with her work; a little afraid of her companion, but still very
intent. "But it will sometimes happen that a young person does not
quite know what is right and what is wrong."

"And sometimes it happens that old people don't know. There was Major
Jones had his wife taken away from him the other day by the Court
because he was always beating her, and he was fifty. I read all about
it in the papers. I think the old people are just as bad as the young."

Lady Susanna felt that her approaches were being cut off from her, and
that she must rush at once against the citadel if she meant to take it.
"Do you think that playing bagatelle is--nice?"

"Yes, I do;--very nice."

"Do you think George would like your playing with Captain De Baron?"

"Why not with Captain de Baron?" said Mary, turning round upon her
assailant with abs