The ladies discussed her diamonds, and concluded unanimously that they were paste. No one allows to another what he does not possess himself. ’You know, my dear, she comes from Paris, and in Paris they make ’em of paste for tenpence to look as natural as real stones worth a thousand pounds.’ ’But her father was a diamond merchant.’ ’True by you, but these stones were her mother’s I make no doubt, and that mother was a gambling old Spanish Countess, who would sell her soul for money. I’ve heard Mr. Trampleasure say as much.’ ’She don’t look as if she had any constitution to speak of,’ observed one old lady. ’That transparent skin,’ answered another, ’always means that the heart is bad. I ought to know, for my uncle was a chemist. The highest person in the land—and when I say it, I mean the highest—came into my uncle’s place one morning and asked for a seidlitz-powder, and he took it on the premises, and he told my uncle that he never took a better seidlitz in his life.’ ’She is proud as Lucifer,’ said one. ’Look! she’s gone and refused Mr. Sampson Tramplara. That is too bad, and she owes her meat and bread, and the roof that covers her, to the charity of his father.’ ’He is getting angry,’ said the lady whose uncle was in the chemical line. ’Sampson is not one who can bear to be treated impolitely.’ ’She will dance with no one but that strange gentleman whom they call Herring, and Captain Trecarrel. Stuck up because of her rank, I suppose.’ ’Ah! as if her rank was anything. The highest in the land spoke quite affable to my uncle, and said his seidlitz was the best seidlitz he had ever drunk.’ ’Do you call Mr. Sampson handsome?’ ’Handsome! I should rather say so; and better than that, he will be rich.’ ’Better than all, he will be good,’ said a serious lady, Mrs. Flamank, impressively. ’The highest in the land put down twopence for his seidlitz like any other man. But that seidlitz cost my uncle five-and-twenty pounds, for he paid that sum for a Royal arms, lion and unicorn and little dog all complete, to put up over his shop door; and an inscription, "Chemist (by appointment) to His Royal Highness." But I never heard that it brought him more custom. Still, there was the honour, and if that were a satisfaction to him, I don’t blame him.’ ’What do you think of Orange Tramplara hooking the Captain?’ ’The hooking was quite as much on his side as on hers. He is poor as a rat, and she wants position, so the transaction is one of simple sale and barter.’ ’The highest in the land,’ began again the lady whose uncle had been a chemist; but at these words the ladies broke up their party round her, and escaped to other parts of the room. Sampson Trampleasure would not take his refusal. He stood by the side of Mirelle, his cheek flushed, and his eye twinkling with anger. ’I don’t see why you should dance with some gentlemen and refuse others,’ he said sulkily.