"Prejudiced, my dear child! I am not in the least prejudiced," returned Lady Marabout. (Nobody ever admitted to a prejudice that _I_ ever heard. It's a plant that grows in all gardens, and is sedulously matted up, watered, and strengthened; but invariably disavowed by its sturdiest cultivators.) "As for Chandos Cheveley, I merely mentioned to you what all town knows about him; and the dislike I have to his class is one of principle, not of prejudice." Lady Cecil made a _moue mutine_: "Oh, Lady Marabout! if you go to 'principle,' _tout est perdu!_ 'Principle' has been made to bear the onus of every private pique since the world began, and has had to answer for more cruelties and injustice than any word in the language. The Romans flung the Christians to the lions 'on principle,' and the Europeans slew the Mahomedans 'on principle,' and 'principle' lighted the autos-da-fé, and signed to the tormentor to give a turn more to the rack! Please don't appeal to anything so severe and hypocritical. Come, what are the Ogre's sins?" Lady Marabout laughed, despite the subject. "Do you think I am a compiler of such catalogues, my love? Pray do not let us talk any more about Chandos Cheveley, he is very little worth it; all I say to you is, be as cool to him as you can, without rudeness, of course. I am never at home when he calls, and were I you, I would be always engaged when he asks you to waltz; his acquaintance can in no way benefit you." Lady Cecil gave a little haughty toss of her head, and lay back in the barouche. "_I_ will judge of that! I am not made for fetters of any kind, you know, and I like to choose my own acquaintance as well as to choose my own dresses. I cannot obey you either this evening, for he asked me to put him on my tablets for the first waltz at Lord Anisette's ball, and I consented. I had no 'engaged' ready, unless I had had a falsehood ready too, and _you_ wouldn't counsel that, Lady Marabout, I am very sure?" With which straightforward and perplexing question Cecil Ormsby successfully silenced her chaperone, by planting her in that disagreeable position known as between the horns of a dilemma; and Lady Marabout, shrinking alike from the responsibility of counselling a "necessary equivocation," as society politely terms its indispensable lies, and the responsibility of allowing Cecil acquaintance with the "very worst" of the Amandine set, sighed, wondered envyingly how Anne Hautton would act in her place, and almost began to wish somebody else had had the onerous stewardship of that brilliant and priceless jewel, Rosediamond's daughter, now that the jewel threatened to be possessed with a will of its own:--the greatest possible flaw in a gem of pure water, which they only want to scintillate brilliantly among the bijouterie of society, and let itself be placed passively in the setting most suitable for it, that can be conceived in the eyes of lady lapidaries intrusted with its sale.