"To stop it," repeated Maggie. "I'd like to see you stop it, when
they've been married two months!"

"So they have! so they have!" said Madam Conway, wringing her hands
in her despair, and crying out that a Conway should be so disgraced.
"What shall I do? What shall I do?"

"Make the best of it, of course," answered Maggie. "I don't see
that George is any worse for his parentage. He is evidently greatly
respected in Worcester, where his family are undoubtedly known. He is
educated and refined, if they are not. Theo loves him, and that is
sufficient, unless I add that he has money."

"But not as much as I supposed," moaned Madam Conway. "Theo told me
two hundred thousand dollars; but that woman said one. Oh, what will
become of me! Give me the hartshorn, Maggie. I feel so faint!"

The hartshorn was handed her, but it could not quiet her distress.
Her family pride was sorely wounded, and had Theo been dead she would
hardly have felt worse than she did.

"How will she bear it when it comes to her knowledge, as it
necessarily must? It will kill her, I know!" she exclaimed, after
Maggie had exhausted all her powers of reasoning in vain; then, as
she remembered the woman's avowed intention of visiting her
daughter-in-law on the morrow, she felt that she must turn back; she
must see Theo and break it to her gently, or the first sight of that
odious creature, claiming her for a daughter, might be of incalculable
injury.