'I don't like this spirit in judging of people. You know quite well,
Alfred, how easy it is to see the whole story in quite another way.
You begin by a harsh and worldly judgment, and it leads you to
misrepresent all that follows. I refuse to believe that Godfrey
Eldon married Mrs. Mutimer's daughter for her money.'

Alfred laughed aloud.

'Of course you do, sister Adela! Women won't admit such things;
that's _their_ aristocratic feeling!'

'And that is, too, worthless and a sham? Will that, too, be done
away with in the new age?'

'Oh, depend upon it! When women are educated, they will take the
world as it is, and decline to live on illusions.'

'Then how glad I am to have been left without education!'

In the meantime a conversation of a very lively kind was in progress
between Mrs. Waltham and her visitor, Mrs. Mewling. The latter was a
lady whose position much resembled Mrs. Waltham's: she inhabited a
small house in the village street, and spent most of her time in
going about to hear or to tell some new thing. She came in this
evening with a look presageful of news indeed.

'I've been to Belwick to-day,' she began, sitting very close to Mrs.
Waltham, whose lap she kept touching as she spoke with excited
fluency. 'I've seen Mrs. Yottle. My dear, what do you think she has