indefensible brazen Mrs. Amy May, who was only the daughter of a half-pay
naval captain, and that Marquis of Collestou, who would, they say,
decorate her with his title to-morrow, if her husband were but somewhere
else. She spread all sorts of report, about Mr. Morsfield, and he was
honour itself in his reserve about her. 'Depend upon it, Aminta--he was
not more than a boy then, and they say she aimed at her enfranchisement
by plotting the collision, for his Yorkshire revenues are immense,
and he is, you know, skilful in the use of arms, and Captain May has no
resources whatever: penury! no one cares to speculate how they contrive!
---but while that dreadful duelling--and my lord as bad as any in his
day-exists, depend upon it, an unscrupulous good-looking woman has as
many lives for her look of an eye or lift of a finger as a throned
Ottoman Turk on his divan.'

Aminta wished to dream. She gave her aunt a second dose, and the lady
relapsed again.

Power to dream had gone. She set herself to look at roadside things,
cottage gardens, old housewives in doorways, gaffer goodman meeting his
crony on the path, groups of boys and girls. She would take the girls,
Matthew Weyburn the boys. She had lessons to give to girls, she had
sympathy, pity, anticipation. That would be a life of happy service.
It might be a fruitful trial of the system he proposed, to keep the boys
and girls in company as much as possible, both at lessons and at games.
His was the larger view. Her lord's view appeared similar to that of her
aunt's 'throned Ottoman Turk on his divan.' Matthew Weyburn believed in
the bettering of the world; Lord Ormont had no belief like it.

Presently Mrs. Pagnell returned to the charge, and once more she was
nipped, and irritated to declare she had never known her niece's temper