There was no end to what might be expected of this lonely little person. Years ago, Betty and May had turned their backs on her in the cruel haphazard manner of two friends who might easily dispose of an outsider. Betty and May despised the Serpent because she "had a cheap governess," "couldn’t afford to go to school," and "wore her hair in one plait." The lonely little Serpent never properly forgave these insults. Mrs. Leighton did not wholly encourage Lance in his tale. "I do not think I approve of your being so down on these people," she said: "and if there is any truth in what you say, it is very tragic about poor Mrs. Clutterbuck, though she does not strike me as being a very capable person." "Capable," asked Lance. "Who could remain capable, Mrs. Leighton, with a cold tap continually running freezing remarks down one’s back. Don’t you think it’s a miracle she’s alive?" Mrs. Leighton preferred to remain on her smooth course of counsel. "It never does to judge people like that," she exclaimed. "You do not know. To put it in a selfish manner, one day you may find the Clutterbucks being of more service to you than any one on earth." She pulled at her knitting ball. "You girls talk a great deal of romance and nonsense about people like the Dudgeons. Why don’t you think something nice about that poor little Serpent for a change?" The girls remembered not very long afterwards the prophetic nature of these remarks. That they should cultivate the Clutterbucks for any reason at all, however, seemed at that moment impossible. Dr. Merryweather called the same afternoon. It was one of the coincidences of life that he should immediately talk of the Clutterbucks. "Know them?" he asked. "I think your husband does, doesn’t he? Do you call on the wife at all?" "No," answered Mrs. Leighton. "I never feel that I could get on with her very well either. Mr. Leighton meets the Professor and they talk a lot together, but it’s quite away from domestic matters." "It would be a bit of a kindness, I think," said the old Doctor, "your calling, I mean. There’s too little public spirit amongst women, don’t you think?" "Oh, wouldn’t it be a little impertinent perhaps to call, in that spirit?" asked Mrs. Leighton. "Well, I don’t know. The child is running wild. The parents are a pair of babies where healthy education is concerned. Result, the child has no friends, and expends her affection, she has stores of it, on her animals. A dog gets run over and dies. What do you get then? She never squeaks. Not a moan, you observe. But she sits up in that tree of hers with a cat to do any comforting she may want--and her hair begins to come out in patches." Mrs. Leighton’s knitting fell to her lap. "Her hair is coming out in patches?" she asked in a horrified voice.