daughter of my dear brother, Colonel Hetth, V.C."

Snobbish, but quite effective as bait for a person who has not complete
control over the eighth letter of the alphabet.

That very morning, quite unheedful of the beauties of the little witch
village, she had gone to collect her mail lying at the post office,
which in summer is almost hidden in its garden of flowers; and amongst
an assortment of spring sale catalogues from emporiums, mostly situated
in South Kensington, had found a letter from the widower, begging to be
allowed to come down for a change of air, and an opportunity of laying
a proposition before her.

She had wandered up the side of the hill, unmindful of the birds and
buds almost bursting with the intoxication of spring; had pitched the
catalogues anywhere on the grass, as is the wont of the untidy who have
no bond with nature, and had tried to solve the problem as she scraped
the mud, with the aid of a twig, from her Louis-Quinze heels.

But she was harassed, poor, hapless creature, for more than one reason.

The words of alarm from the nurse, the innuendoes from departing
maid-servants, and the direct warning from the old specialist which had
long since faded from her mind, had been forcibly revived by the
happenings at the school; and being one of those who invariably plump
for the worst, and without giving the slightest thought to the
criminality of the proceeding, she had definitely decided, if she could
coerce the girl into falling in with her plans, to marry her to the
highest bidder before worse could happen.