'Ma says it is their meanness; but my aunt, Lady Northmoor, did say perhaps it would be livelier another year, and then we should have had some dancing and deportment lessons. I up and told her I could dance fast enough now, but she said it would not be becoming or right to Lady Adela's and Miss Morton's feelings.' 'Do they live there?' 'Not in the house. Lady Adela has a cottage of her own, and Miss Morton stops with her. Lady Adela is as high and standoffish as the monument,' said Ida, pausing for a comparison. 'High and haughty,' said Sibyl, impressed. 'And the other lady?' 'Oh, she is much more good-natured. We call her Bertha; at least, she told us that we might call her anything but that horrid Cousin Bertha, as she said. But she's old, thirty-six years old, and not a bit pretty, and she says such odd things, one doesn't know what to do. She thought I made myself useful and could wash and iron,' said Ida, as if this were the greatest possible insult, in which Sibyl acquiesced. 'And she thought I should know the factory girls, just the hands,' added Ida, greatly disgusted. 'As if I should! But ma says low tastes are in the family, for she is going to live in London, and go and sit with the shop-girls in the evening. Still I like her better than Lady Adela, who keeps herself to herself. Mamma says it is pride and spite that her plain little sickly girl hasn't come to be my Lady.' 'What, doesn't she speak to them?' said Sibyl, quite excited. 'Oh yes, she calls, and shakes hands, and all that, but one never seems to get on with her. And Emily Trotman, she's the doctor's daughter, such a darling, told me _such_ a history--so interesting!' 'Tell me, Ida, there's a dear.' 'She says they were all frightfully dissipated' (Ida said it quite with a relish)--'the old Lord and Mr. Morton, Lady Adela's husband, you know, and Miss Bertha--always racing and hunting and gambling and in debt. Then there came a Captain Alder, who was ever so much in love with Miss Bertha, but most awfully in debt to her brother, and very passionate besides. So he took him out in his dog-cart with a fiery horse that was sure to run away.' 'Who did?' 'Captain Alder took Mr. Morton, though they begged and prayed him not, and the horse ran away and Mr. Morton was thrown out and killed.' 'Oh!' with extreme zest. 'On purpose?' 'Miss Bertha was sure it was, so that she might have all the fortune, and so she told him, and flung the betrothal ring in his face, and he went right off, and never has been heard of since.' 'Well, that _is_ interesting. Do you think he shot himself?' 'No, he was too mean. Most likely he married a hideous millionaire: but the Mortons were always dreadful, and did all sorts of wicked things.' 'I declare it's as good as any tale--like the sweet one in the _Young Ladies' Friend_ now--"The Pride of Pedro." Have you seen it?'