“But, then, you are like nobody else,” retorted Mrs. Raidsford. This remark, intended to be both hurtful and depreciating, failed of its effect, because Heather mentally hoped she was not much like Mrs. Raidsford. “A woman whom Raidsford ought to have been pilloried for marrying,” observed Mr. Stewart; “apparently, he is a very worthy fellow himself, but I am quite satisfied there must be some terrible want in the character of any person who could make such a creature his wife. There ought to be a law against those kind of marriages.” “Perhaps——,” began Heather, and then she stopped, colouring a little. “Pray, complete your sentence, Mrs. Dudley,” said Mr. Stewart; “you have roused my curiosity, and it is not fair to have it unsatisfied.” “I only hesitated lest what rose to my mind might sound ill-natured. I do not mean, however, any sneer when I say, that perhaps Mrs. Raidsford may have been very suitable to her husband when he married her. It is so difficult to express an opinion like that without appearing to reflect on a man’s origin,” she added, getting into unutterable depths of confusion; “but I often think about a speech, a very dear girl I once knew made, concerning Mrs. Raidsford. She said, ‘it was such a pity a man could not choose again when he came to years of social discretion.’” “She used to say also,” remarked Lucy Dudley, “that if Mr. Raidsford could only have foreseen how high he was to rise in the world, Mrs. Raidsford would probably now have been wife to some mechanic—cooking steaks for his one o’clock dinner, instead of being mistress of Moorlands, and having servants much more ladylike than herself under her. Bessie never was weary of mimicking Mrs. Raidsford.” “Who was this clever young lady?” asked Mr. Stewart, for whom the very bitterness of such a speech had its peculiar charm. “A cousin of ours,” Lucy answered. “Married, or still eligible?” inquired the old bachelor. Lucy did not reply; she looked at Heather, who, after a moment’s embarrassed pause, replied,— “She was engaged to be married, when with us, last winter; but we have not heard from her since she left Berrie Down.” “Some feminine quarrel,” thought Mr. Stewart; and, looking out over the sea, he laughed softly to himself at the idea that all women were alike,—that no two women could agree; that, let them be young or old, pretty or ugly, sweet or sour, they could still jangle and dispute like the veriest viragoes. And yet, this Mrs. Dudley puzzled him: if she had a temper, she must, he thought, have it under wonderful control; if there were any evil in her, she must have an astonishing power of concealing its existence. To sisters and children, to friends and servants, she was alike, gentle and forbearing. Never but once did Mr. Stewart see her eyes darken, and her face flush under the influence of any strong emotion; and then it was a slight thing which caused the tell-tale blood to rush to brow, and cheek, and neck.