People who have met them abroad report favourably of Sir Nugent and Lady Uffington. Frank Eardley is enthusiastic about Eleanor's looks, and her increased appreciation of art and china. He always thought her bright, you know, but, by Jove, Lady Uffington takes the shine out of Eleanor Irvine in a surprising way. Lydyeard, whose irascible temper is generally sent up to white heat by the 'infernal folly,' which is his mildest term for a friend's marriage, has not once been heard to growl, and has even deigned to ask when the Uffingtons are coming home? These small particulars, together with the general news, domestic and otherwise, in which she and her husband are supposed to be interested, are communicated to Eleanor by Mrs. Chadwick, who yields to no born fine lady in existence in fluency of epistolary composition, and in always having 'an immense number of letters to get through.' Mrs. Chadwick delights in letters, dearly loves to live in an avalanche of notes and messages, and never loses an opportunity of despatching telegrams. She has a notion that it is _chic_ to be perpetually busy 'with people and things outside her home, and she has succeeded in accreting to herself a number of fussy little intimacies which don't really mean anything--which would smash and go to pieces under the weight of a real trial, a genuine difficulty, either on her own part or on that of the object of any one of them, but which she maintains with scrupulous care. One result of this is, that she really has a good chance of hearing a great deal about every thing that is 'going on' among a certain set, and within a certain limited sphere of human action and interests, which, however, is quite wide enough for the taste and the intelligence of Mrs. Chadwick and her friends. To be beforehand with the _Morning Post_ is a triumph to her and her like; to be forestalled in its columns of exclusive intelligence concerning any member of the favoured classes, whose movements only are worth study, whose histories only are worth tracing from point to points is a defeat. In such triumphs and such defeats it had always been desperately difficult to interest Eleanor; and it was with something approaching to exultation that Mrs. Chadwick commenced one of the latest of her letters to her sister, previous to Eleanor's return, with the announcement that she had something to tell her which would arouse even _her_ curiosity.