Sometimes she speculated on how Aunt Pauline would take the revelation of her attachment to Owen Rivers. That she should have had any doubt on the subject proved her ignorance of Aunt Pauline's views. Mrs. Dormer-Smith would not for the world have expressed to May any gross or sordid sentiments about marriage. She had not the slightest idea that she entertained any such herself! But, as she had long ago said, there are many things--never put into words--which "girls brought up in a certain _monde_ learn by instinct." Now in that kind of instinct May was greatly deficient. May reflected that her aunt had spurned Theodore Bransby's proposal on the avowed ground of his being "nobody." And she understood--or thought she understood--that Aunt Pauline accorded a tangible existence only to such persons as could be proved by genealogical records to have had a certain number of great-grandfathers. Now, thus considered, Owen was very undeniably and solidly "somebody." He was poor, certainly; but how often had Aunt Pauline mingled her plaintive regrets with Mrs. Griffin's about the increasing worship of Mammon which vulgarized London society! And although Aunt Pauline sometimes showed a deference for wealth which was rather puzzling in the face of these utterances, yet May observed that her personal liking and admiration were given on very different grounds. Witness her regard for Constance Hadlow! Mrs. Dormer-Smith even kept up an intermittent correspondence with that young lady. Constance's letters were precisely of the kind which Mrs. Dormer-Smith delighted in--budgets of social gossip selected with unerring tact. Constance had returned to Oldchester, but she did not spend many consecutive weeks in her parents' house, being invited to visit among "the _élite_ of the county aristocracy," as Mrs. Simpson phrased it. Miss Hadlow had, in fact, achieved what might be called, all things considered, a brilliant social position. Her visit to Glengowrie had been a great success. She had made a conquest of the duchess; and also--though that was comparatively of small consequence--of the duke. Mrs. Griffin was charmed that her _protégée_ had done her so much honour; and promised to take her into society the following season, if Canon and Mrs. Hadlow would give her leave to come to town. Indeed, Mrs. Griffin began seriously to revolve in her mind whether she could not contrive to marry Charley Rivers's grand-daughter, and secure her a fine establishment. Mrs. Griffin was proud of her achievements in that line, which, though few, were brilliant. Like a certain famous Italian singing-master, who was wont in his old age to decline unpromising pupils on the ground that it was not worth his while to make _seconde donne_, Mrs. Griffin practised only the higher branches of matchmaking; and refused to fly her falcons at anything under twenty thousand a year--or a peerage.