To afford the reader the explanation contained in the preceding chapter, we have been obliged to leave Kate Dalton waiting, in mingled anxiety and suspense, for the hour of Mrs. Ricketts's visit. Although her mind principally dwelt upon the letter which had been announced as coming from her father, an event so strange as naturally to cause astonishment, she also occasionally recurred to the awkwardness of receiving persons whom Lady Hester had so scrupulously avoided, and being involved in an acquaintanceship so unequivocally pronounced vulgar. A few short months before, and the incident would have worn a very different aspect to her eyes. She would have dwelt alone on the kindness of one, an utter stranger, addressing her in terms of respectful civility, and proffering the attention of a visit. She would have been grateful for the goodnature that took charge of a communication for her. She would have viewed the whole as a sort of flattering notice, and never dreamed of that long catalogue of “inconveniences” and annoyances so prolifically associated with the event as it at present stood. She was greatly changed in many respects. She had been daily accustomed to hear the most outrageous moral derelictions lightly treated, or, at least, but slightly censured. For every fault and failing there was a skilful excuse or a charitable explanation. The errors of the fashionable world were shown to be few, insignificant, and venial; and the code showed no exception to the rule that “well-bred people can do no wrong.” Vulgarity alone was criminal; and the sins of the underbred admitted of no palliation. Her sense of justice might have revolted against such judgments, had reason been ever appealed to; but such was not the case. Ridicule alone was the arbiter; whatever could be scoffed at was detestable, and a solecism in dress, accent, or demeanor was a higher crime than many a grave transgression or glaring iniquity. The little mimicries of Albert Jekyl, as he described Mrs. Ricketts, the few depreciatory remarks of Lady Hester concerning her, would have outweighed her worth had her character been a cornucopia of goodness. It was, then, in no pleasant flurry of spirits, that, just as the clock struck three, Kate heard the heavy door of the palace flung wide, and the sound of wheels echo beneath the vaulted entrance. The next moment a small one-horse phaeton, driven by a very meagre servant in a tawdry livery, passed into the courtyard, having deposited its company in the hall.