Lucy blushed as she thought of the many damsels who did go from town to town unattended by this ideal representative of the proprieties; of Miss Gloucester, the walking-lady, who had walked in that ladylike capacity for the last fifteen years, and knew every town in the United Kingdom, and every _fit-up_ or temporary temple of the drama in the British Islands--and who had supported her bed-ridden old mother in a comfortable lodging at Walworth, and had dressed herself with exquisite neatness, and preserved a reputation without spot or blemish, during the whole period, on a salary averaging twenty-five shillings per week. She thought, with a deeper blush, of the two ballet-dancers, Mademoiselle Pasdebasque and Miss May Zourka, who wandered over the face of the earth together, loud, and reckless, and riotous as a couple of medical students, and who were dimly suspected of having given suppers--suppers of oysters, and pork-pies, and bottled-beer--to the officers of different garrisons, in the course of their wanderings. Of these, and of many other unprotected strollers--some bright, pure, gentle girls, of good lineage and careful education; many honest, hardworking, and self-sacrificing bread-winners; others painted and disreputable wanderers, who made their profession a means to their unholy ends--did Lucy think, as Mrs. Jerningham laid down the law about the respectable elderly _chaperone_. “Do you know any one of unblemished respectability with whom you could travel?” Mrs. Jerningham asked, after a pause. Miss Alford’s mental gaze surveyed the ranks of her acquaintance, and the image of Mrs. M’Grudder arose before her, grim and terrible. Unblemished respectability was the M’Grudder’s strong point. The fact that she was not an immoral person was a boast which she was apt to reiterate at all times and seasons, appropriate or inappropriate; and her spotless fame had furnished her with many a Parthian shaft wherewith to wound helpless evil-doers of the Pasdebasque and May Zourka class, in that Eleusinian temple of theatrical life, the ladies’ dressing-room. Abroad, guilty Pasdebasque has the best of it. She attends race-meetings in her carriage, and flaunts her silks and velvets before the awe-stricken eyes of the little country town. The garrison provides her with bouquets, and applauds her _entrées_ with big noisy hands and a bass roar of welcome; while her benefits are favoured with a patronage seldom accorded to the benefits of innocence. But the Nemesis awaits her in the dressing-room. There the dread Furies avenge the wrongs of their weaker sisterhood, and retribution takes the awful voice of M’Grudder.