_Lady Ann_ (_to a friend of proved discretion_): I have been brought up in a different school, that's all. "Whom God hath joined..." I don't ask any one to share my feelings and I'm not so foolish as to say I won't receive people who have taken a step which is at least legal, however much one may deplore the present ease of divorce. I do indeed try to differentiate in my attitude towards the guilty party, but in this I am more than ever "ploughing a lonely furrow," as my boy Will rather picturesquely expresses it... Nowadays it is unfashionable to heed the teachings of religion; but I should have thought that the least consideration for patriotism, stability... My father's maxim was that family life is the _basis_ of the state and that, when once you sanction the principle of divorce, you are undermining the foundations of the commonwealth. So I have at least been consistent... That is perhaps more important than you think. The cynic cannot see that one's principles are independent of personal considerations. If they ever have the ill fortune to coincide even in appearance... Indeed yes! I happen to know what I am talking about... Forgive me if I spoke sharply; but one's nerves are not of iron, and it is not pleasant to be charged with conspiracy by the members of one's own family. Oh, not Spenworth! We have hardly met for years, I am thankful to say, though my husband has more than once tried to bring about a reconciliation. I have no personal animus; but, if the head of an honoured family chooses to drag his name in the mire, he shall at least not say that he has had countenance or support from even so humble a person as his sister-in-law. I was referring to the other side, my own people; I have an unforgiving little enemy, I fear, in my niece Phyllida; I should mind that less if Brackenbury and his poor wife did not seem to aid and abet her. Loyalty to the family, I should have thought... But, once again, I was brought up in a different school. I have told my brother, until I am tired, he ought to send her _right_ away. It was a disappointment... Goodness me, it is a disappointment when one cries for the moon; and, though I thought this Colonel Butler a decent, manly fellow, he was really nobody. He saw, without my telling him, that every one would say he was marrying her for her money... I won't call it an _escape_ for Phyllida, because that always sounds so spiteful. But I will allow no one to say I made him throw her over so that I might keep her for my own boy!