Captain Fane had no resource but to fume secretly, and seek, as he steered, to be contented with the companionship of the Sundons. There was one safeguard in Lady Sundon’s irrepressible good fellowship, which was restrained by no extreme delicacy or humility, that it combated successfully her instinctive homage to rank and fashion, and prevented her from being left entirely out of any group in her vicinity. Sir George and Mrs. Lascelles’s blandness,—the great quality on which they prided themselves, in the absence of all higher qualities,—might not have remained unalloyed with insolence. The gentleman and lady might have rebuffed what they regarded as offensive intrusion in Lady Sundon’s freedom of speech, seeing that the pair attached themselves to the Sundons solely on Lady Bell’s account. But dear, delightful, naïve little Lady Bell had her weaknesses, which her friends were quick enough to perceive and respect in time. One of these weaknesses was, that she would not submit to see snubbing administered in her presence to the hospitable country baronet’s wife and her absurdly gawky step-daughters, with whom she had the misfortune to be domiciled in town. Neither would the froward goddess consent at present to be rescued, to quit these Sundons and put herself under the guardianship of Mrs. Lascelles, who, if she and Sir George had got their will, would have had Lady Bell, without delay, cut the whole connection, even so far as her dear Mrs. Sundon. Mrs. Sundon was a true woman of quality, and of the world, indeed, but she had abandoned her sphere, and might live to turn queen’s evidence against her old world, any day. She was blue, stuck up, and tiresomely virtuous for a young woman. Lady Bell spoilt herself by quoting and aping this model. But Sir George and Mrs. Lascelles must set to work cautiously in doing their benevolent “possible” to cure Lady Bell of this and other defects. Rome was not built in one day, and neither in one day would a wilful girl’s rampant staunchness and warm-heartedness be converted into a conveniently faithless and lukewarm state of the affections. In the meantime, Lady Sundon had insisted on drawing everybody’s attention to Chelsea, because she had once assisted at a “whim” there, when she had gone over Chelsea Hospital. The building had, at this time, its wounded soldiers who had been disabled at Bunker’s Hill, and some of whom Captain Fane had brought home in his frigate.