All this, delivered with a smooth and smiling countenance, and in mellifluous tones to whose covert impertinence it would be impossible to do justice, Mrs. Chadwick listened to, in a state of mind which she found it difficult to describe when she afterwards repeated it to her husband. She was astounded at the woman's insolence, and her irritation was sufficiently complete to enable her to comprehend very thoroughly its _portée_; but the extraordinary transformation in Mrs. Hamblin's own way of thinking and talking puzzled her profoundly. 'It is not as if she had any pretensions, you know,' said Mrs. Chadwick in an aggrieved voice. 'One could put up with it from women who go in thoroughly for that sort of thing, and won't have anything to do with anybody who has ever been compromised in any way; but _Mrs. Hamblin!_' There was a good deal of untutored eloquence in the tone in which Mrs. Chadwick pronounced her quondam friend's name. She had never thrown so much expression into even her most successful song in the old days. 'Fan,' said Mr. Chadwick, with a funny twinkle in his eye and a funny roll in his voice, 'prepare yourself for a blow! Mrs. Hamblin means to weed her visiting-list, and "Chadwick, Mrs." will disappear from the C's. She's in the forties, or very near them, isn't she?' 'I don't know for certain; but Mr. Pratt says so.' 'And Mr. Pratt! Terribly trustworthy authority, he. She's going in for goody, my dear; that's it, rely upon it; and poor Eleanor will be her first "example," and Uffington the text of her first sermon. Of course you'll say nothing to them about her impertinence, and I shall be more nearly angry with you than I have ever been in my life if you waste a thought of your own upon it.' Mrs. Chadwick could not dismiss the matter with all the celerity her husband prescribed; but she really did not mind it much. Her fashionable education had made good progress in the direction of callousness.