“For that reason then, Lucy, forget it, ignore it. I have no need to tell you, my dear, that my own life has not been a very happy one, and if I venture to give advice, it is not without having had my share of sorrows. You say you cannot go back to the Priory?” “No; that is impossible.” “Unpleasant it would certainly be, and all the more so with these marriage festivities. The wedding, I suppose, will take place there?” “I don't know; I have not heard;” and she tried to say this with an easy indifference. “Trafford is disinherited, is he not?--passed over in the entail, or something or other?” “I don't know,” she muttered out; but this time her confusion was not to be concealed. “And will this old man they talk of--this Sir Brook somebody--make such a settlement on them as they can live on?” “I know nothing about it at all.” “I wonder, Lucy dear, it never occurred to you to fascinate Dives yourself. What nice crumbs these would have been for Algy and Cary!” “You forget, Madam, what a jealous husband I have!” and her eyes now darted a glance of almost wild malignity. “Poor Dudley, how many faults we shall find in you if we come to discuss you!” “Let us not discuss Colonel Sewell, Madam; it will be better for all of us. A thought has just occurred; it was a thing I was quite forgetting. May I send one of your servants with a note, for which he will wait the answer?” “Certainly. You will find paper and pens there.” The note was barely a few lines, and addressed to George Kincaid, Esq., Ely Place. “You are to wait for the answer, Richard,” said she, as she gave it to the servant. “Do you expect he will let you have some money, Lucy?” asked Lady Lendrick, as she heard the name. “No; it was about something else I wrote. I'm quite sure he would not have given me money if I asked for it.” “I wish _I_ could, my dear Lucy; but I am miserably poor. Sir William, who was once the very soul of punctuality, has grown of late most neglectful. My last quarter is over-due two months. I must own all this has taken place since Dudley went to live at the Priory. I hear the expenses were something fabulous.” “There was a great deal of waste; a great deal of mock splendor and real discomfort.” “Is it true the wine bill was fifteen hundred pounds for the last year?” “I think I heard it was something to that amount.” “And four hundred for cigars?” “No; that included pipes, and amber mouthpieces, and meerschaums for presents,--it rained presents!” “And did Sir William make no remark or remonstrance about this?” “I believe not. I rather think I heard that he liked it. They persuaded him that all these indiscretions, like his new wigs, and his rouge, and his embroidered waistcoats, made him quite juvenile, and that nothing made a man so youthful as living beyond his income.” “It is easy enough to see how I was left in arrear; and _you_, dear, were you forgotten all this while and left without a shilling?”