When Fan’s honours were fully fledged, she might have a share of the liberty which was vouchsafed to her husband, granted to her. She might skim the milk in her dairy, and gather the eggs in her poultry-yard, even carry them in the skirt of her gown, as Agneta Stanhope had carried them, without challenge. And if Harry had been the son and not the grandson of a viscount, and thus only one degree instead of two removed from a peerage, or if his father’s father had been a marquis or a duke, who knows but that Fan might have been allowed to go on to milk her cows and feed her calves—not in frolic? Mrs. Hilliard was impressed by Fan’s promotion. ‘That girl Fan Constable has proved her mettle with perfectly lawful weapons, for she is too true a little Philistine to stoop to employ any other.’ Mrs. Hilliard ate her leek before her cousin, and it was no small comfort to Louisa Hilliard, in her state of mind at the moment, that Catherine was next to nobody when eating a leek was in question. ‘Both of these Constables have used me ill, have got the better of me—of us all.’ Mrs. Hilliard spoke ruefully for her. ‘Fan, with her negative drawing-room and positive attitude, has been and gone and done it under our very noses.’ ‘Done what?’ enquired the only half-awake Catherine. ‘Distanced her competitors—the Houghtons, the head-master’s nieces; how do I know how many? all who had entered for the prize. She has overcome and trampled upon her foes, and carried off the chance which might have been yours, my dear, only you sat still and missed it.’ ‘Was Harry Stanhope my chance in life?’ enquired Catherine, opening her weary eyes. ‘Have I missed my all in losing him? Well, I did not flatter myself there was any great thing to look forward to in my career, if a woman can be said to have a career, but I have been guilty of the presumption of dreading (and do you know the dread gave a kind of trembling interest to life?) that there might be greater losses to encounter than that of Harry Stanhope’s handkerchief—not that there was ever the remotest prospect of its being thrown at me.’