It was gall and wormwood to Mrs. Sudlow to be compelled to listen to this outspoken statement without seeing any means by which it might be gainsaid. "You are a wilful, headstrong, disobedient girl," was all she could find for the moment to say. It was a statement which Fanny made no attempt to refute. "Neither you nor your father have an atom of proper pride about you," resumed Mrs. Sudlow in a tone of cold acidity. "Little did I think that any daughter of mine--the daughter of a woman who can trace back her ancestry for upwards of three hundred years--would ever condescend to marry anyone so low down in the social scale as Philip Winslade. I know quite well what his Lordship will say when he hears of it--for hear of it he must. He will say that you have disgraced the family from which (on your mother's side) you spring, and he will beg that your name may never be mentioned in his hearing again." For once the little woman seemed on the verge of tears. For her the picture her imagination had conjured up was full of pathos. Fanny bit her lip and waited for a few moments before trusting herself to reply. Then she said: "With all deference to you, mamma, I don't care the snap of a finger what his Lordship may choose either to think or say--indeed, if it comes to that, I very much doubt whether he remembers that there is such a person as poor me in existence, and certainly I am not going to make a fetich of him. I have not forgotten that day when the Earl and his daughters drove over from Raven Towers, where they were staying on a visit, and condescended to partake of luncheon at the Vicarage. As for his Lordship, I remember that both in manners and appearance he struck me as being more like a small shopkeeper than a nobleman with a long line of ancestry, and the way he once or twice snubbed papa, who is much the finer gentleman of the two, made my blood boil, young as I was at the time. And then, when I was asked to show the Lady Anna and the Lady Mary round the garden, I have not forgotten with what frosty condescension they listened to my remarks, nor how they stared at my sunburnt cheeks, and my country-made shoes and my poor print frock--as if, taken altogether, I were a creature who had strayed by chance from another sphere. Do you think, mamma, that to themselves, or to each other, they would acknowledge that the same blood runs in my veins as in their own? No, I am quite sure they would not." Mrs. Sudlow cast up her eyes and shook her head. She could not but acknowledge to herself that she had come off second best in the encounter. All she could find to say was: "You are incorrigible--yes, perfectly incorrigible; and I am at a loss to know why Providence has seen fit to afflict me with such a child." CHAPTER V A FAMILY CONFERENCE AND WHAT CAME OF IT.