They all said ‘Lady William!’ with a joint cry, which, though it was very quietly uttered by each individual, rose into quite an outcry when uttered by the whole. ‘Poor little Emily!’ said Miss Grey, putting up her handkerchief to her eyes, ‘that’s how I think of her--though if she gets any pleasure out of her title, poor child, if you can call that a title----’ ‘Of course it is a title--she takes precedence of all of us,’ said Mrs. FitzStephen. ‘A courtesy title,’ said the General. ‘Dear, I never knew there was anything against it,’ said Mrs. Kendal. ‘I hope she gets some pleasure out of it, poor dear,’ said Miss Grey; ‘little else has she ever got. A horrible man, who never, I believe, made himself pleasant to her, never for one day: and a horrible life for I don’t know how many years. If there had been a mother, or if he hadn’t been---- well, I won’t call him names now he’s in his grave--such a sacrifice would never have been made.’ ‘But I suppose she liked him at the time,’ said one of the ladies. ‘And no doubt he was in love with her,’ said another; ‘Lord Portcullis’ son, and she a country clergyman’s daughter.’ ‘Oh, as for that, God knows: she was perhaps dazzled with the miserable title, and her father of course, who was only a silly old man--and then she was besought and persuaded, God knows how, by those who did it for their own sake, not hers----’ ‘But what reason could any one have?’ said Mrs. FitzStephen; ‘my dear Nelly Grey, you must be making up a story in your head; what cause could any one have, unless to satisfy the man who was in love with a girl, or to help forward the girl to a match above her? These are the only two reasons possible, and there’s no harm in them; we would, any of us, do it,’ she said. ‘Not if the man was of bad character,’ said the General. ‘And if the girl was not in love with him? Oh, I don’t call that romantic at all,’ Mrs. Kendal said. Miss Grey shook her head again, shook it till her little bonnet, and all that could twitter and tremble about her, shook too. ‘You’re all good people,’ she said; ‘you don’t know the mystery of a wicked woman’s heart--or for that matter of a man’s either.’ ‘Nelly,’ said Mrs. FitzStephen, almost sharply, ‘what can you know, a little single woman, about mysteries and wicked persons? A soldier’s wife like me, that has been knocked about the world----’ ‘Or, oh, dear me, a clergyman’s!’ said Mrs. Kendal, ‘and they are told everything----’