"Yes, it must be a terrible thought to you," I answered, cruelly, for the
purpose of forcing my dear old antagonist into the right way of thinking.
"But it is your duty to your daughters to face it squarely, and if
possible, to let it help you in preparing them to meet the world. They
may, if they will, find evil everywhere; they may avoid it anywhere.
Frances, with her marvellous beauty, is sure to meet good fortune at
court, and good fortune is a great moral preservative of women."

"Bad doctrine, Ned, bad doctrine," said my uncle, shaking his head.

"But good truth," I answered. "Vice, like disease, breeds best in
poverty."

"You have just admitted that Whitehall is a nest of vice. Wealth has not
prevented it there," returned my uncle, beating me in the argument for a
moment.

But I soon rallied: "Wealth will not help those who want to go wrong, but
it has saved many a woman who wanted to be good. However, all this
argument is impertinent. Frances is strong, and she is good, and you may
rest your mind of all fear that she will ever be otherwise. Hers is not
only the virtue of goodness, but of stubbornness and pride."

"I believe you are right, nephew," returned my uncle, smiling for the
first time that evening. "Stubbornness is a good thing in a woman, and my
Frances has a store of it 'that might surprise one knowing her but
slightly."

"Yes," I replied. "And now, while her beauty is reaching its climax,