"This the worst of all. She may ruin her husband, rich though he is." "As poor Robert Dalrymple ruined himself. Scarcely that, however, in this case, Gracie. Mr. Grubb cannot be brought to ruin blindfold by his wife: and it strikes me he will take very good care, for her sake as well as his own, that she does not bring him to it. But he ought to be told without delay." Grace Chenevix fell into one of the most unpleasant reveries she had ever experienced. Adela went often to Lady Sanely's; she knew that. Another moment, and Lord Acorn came in. "Papa," cried Lady Mary, after she had greeted her father, "we were talking of Adela. A rumour reached us at Netherleigh that she was growing too fond of card-playing. It is carried on to a high extent at Lady Sanely's house, we are led to believe, and that Adela is often there, and joining in it." "Ay, they go in for tolerably high stakes at Lady Sanely's," replied the earl, in his careless, not to say supercilious manner. "Very silly of Adela!" "It is true then, papa!" gasped Grace. "True enough," he remarked. "I dare say, though, Adela can take care of her purse-strings, and draw them in when necessary." "How indifferent papa is!" thought Grace, with a sigh. She was anything but indifferent. She was thinking what it might be best to do; how save Adela from further folly. After dinner, when the carriage came round to take her mother and Harriet to a small early gathering at old Lady Cust's, and Mary, tired with her day's journey, had retired for the night, Grace suddenly spoke. "Mamma, I think, if you have no objection, I will go with you in the carriage and let it leave me at Adela's. I should like to sit an hour with her." "I have no objection," was the answer of Lady Acorn, spoken rather tartly; as usual; for she lived in a chronic state of dissatisfaction with her daughter Adela. "Go, if you like. And just give her a hint to mend her manners, Grace, with regard to that boy." "_That_ is pure idle pastime," was the mental comment of Grace Chenevix. "This other may be worse." CHAPTER XIX. FLIRTATION. They stood together in the dusk of the evening, the tempter and the deceived. Really it is not too much so to designate them. She, one of the fairest of earth's fair daughters, leaned in a listless attitude against the window-frame, looking out on the square. Perhaps, listening: for a woman of misery, with three children round her, was singing her doleful ditty there, and gazing up at the noble mansion as if she hoped some poor mite might be dropped to her from its superfluity of wealth. The children were thin and haggard, with that sharp, pinching look of _age_ in their faces so unsuited to childhood, and which never comes but from famine and long-continued wretchedness. The mother--she was little more than a girl--made a halt opposite the window: her eye had caught the beautiful face enshrined there amidst the curtains, and she sang out louder and more piteously than ever.