'Oh, Mrs. Fox-Moore!' said Lady Whyteleafe, obviously disappointed. 'She's a step-sister, isn't she?' 'Yes, yes. Oh, I wish she'd never stepped over my threshold!' 'Why?' said Mr. Freddy, sticking in his eyeglass. 'Don't, Freddy. Don't look at her. Oh, I wish I were dead!' 'What _have_ you been doing? She looks as if she wished _she_ were dead.' 'That's nothing. She always looks like that,' Lady Whyteleafe assured the pair. 'Yes, and she makes it a great favour to come. "I seldom go into society," she writes in her stiff little notes; and you're reminded that way, without her actually setting it down, that she devotes herself to good works.' 'Perhaps she doesn't know what else to do with all that money,' said the lady of the pearls. '_She_ hasn't got a penny piece.' 'Oh, is it all his? I thought the Leverings were rather well off.' 'Yes, but the money came through the second wife, Vida's mother. Oh, I hate that Fox-Moore woman!' Mrs. Freddy laughed ruefully. 'And I'm sure her husband is a great deal too good for her. But how _could_ I have done it!' 'You haven't told us yet.' 'They asked me who was late, and I said Dick Farnborough, and that I hoped he hadn't forgotten, for I had Hermione Heriot here on purpose to meet him. And I told Vida about the Heriots trying to marry Hermione to that old Colonel Redding.' 'Oh, can't they bring it off?' said Lady Whyteleafe. 'I've been afraid they would. "It's so dreadful," I said, "to see a fresh young girl tied to a worn-out old man."' '_Oh!_' remarked Lady Whyteleafe, genuinely shocked. 'And you said that to----' Mrs. Freddy nodded with melancholy significance. 'Even when Vida said, "It seems to do well enough sometimes," _still_ I never never remembered the Fox-Moore story! And I went on about it being a miracle when it turned out even tolerably--and, oh, Heaven forgive me! I grew eloquent!' 'It's your passion for making speeches,' said Mr. Freddy. At which, accountably to Lady Whyteleafe, Mrs. Freddy blushed and stumbled in this particular 'speech.'