“La! Lady Sundon,” interposed Miss Lyddy Sundon, who, in company with her sister, was as die-away as her stepmother was jolly, that they might thus establish a claim to refinement and a presumptive case of superficial grievance, against Lady Sundon. For somebody had impressed upon the young women, that there must be hardships where there were step-relations, and Miss Lyddy and her sister had languidly taken up the idea as a source of interest which could not otherwise be found in their ordinary persons, characters, and prosperous lot. “Who would care for such rude draughts? Only a milkmaid or a ploughman could stand them. Polite people like Lady Bell soon have enough.” “A fig for your philosophy, Lyddy,” protested the elder woman; “I never saw you abstemious in your draughts, and sure I never stint you. As for milkmaids, young women are very much alike, whether they be milkmaids or countesses, I take it—no offence, Lady Bell. I do love a noble name and a title, all the same.” “There is no offence,” Lady Bell replied with a smile. While Miss Lyddy insinuated a word of hurt feelings—“I wish your ladyship would explain what you mean by not seeing me abstemious in my draughts. I hope I know what a delicate woman owes to her nerves.” “Sister,”—Miss Sundon soothed the injured fine lady solemnly,—“Lady Sundon does not mean to speak unkind. She knows that we take after our papa, and have not her rude health and high spirits, which make her love her joke to the degree that she may certainly mislead Lady Bell Trevor.” “Oh dear, no,” denied Lady Sundon with careless candour, “Lady Bell can see for herself that you are two poor creatures not able for much, though after all you are fit for more than you think for, only you have got it into your heads that it is not tonish to be natural and merry as grigs, which I was when I was like you. But it is all fudge, and you are clean out there, as Lady Bell can tell you, and as I could have told you myself if you would have listened to me. Ain’t the great ladies madder than the country lasses? Han’t I seen, since I came to town, when I had ridden out to Twickenham, her Grace of Devonshire marching in regimentals at the head of a company of fencibles? Now, I ain’t so bad as that, Sir Peter,” Lady Sundon challenged her valetudinarian husband. “No, nor need be, my lady, so long as my bridle is on your neck,” retorted Sir Peter dryly. “You must have mistook,” maintained the two Misses Sundon in a breath; “her Grace could never have done anything half so shocking. What! march miles on a filthy miry road, in the company of hundreds of common men, followed up by the rag, tag and bob-tail of their wives and children; having no rest and refreshment, unless she could swig her can of ale with the fellows at the ale-house doors!”