LXXIX. ONCE MORE AT PORTRAY
LXXX. WHAT WAS SAID ABOUT IT ALL AT MATCHING




THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS




CHAPTER I

LIZZIE GREYSTOCK


It was admitted by all her friends, and also by her enemies--who were in
truth the more numerous and active body of the two--that Lizzie Greystock
had done very well with herself. We will tell the story of Lizzie
Greystock from the beginning, but we will not dwell over it at great
length, as we might do if we loved her. She was the only child of old
Admiral Greystock, who in the latter years of his life was much perplexed
by the possession of a daughter. The admiral was a man who liked whist,
wine--and wickedness in general we may perhaps say, and whose ambition it
was to live every day of his life up to the end of it. People say that he
succeeded, and that the whist, wine, and wickedness were there, at the
side even of his dying bed. He had no particular fortune, and yet his
daughter, when she was little more than a child, went about everywhere
with jewels on her fingers, and red gems hanging round her neck, and
yellow gems pendent from her ears, and white gems shining in her black