t--'twas _you_
that used the word scandal--but I have daughters of my own to consider.
I have nothing to say against Anastasia, who, I believe, is a good girl
enough"--and his patronising manner grated terribly on Miss
Joliffe--"though I wish I could see her take more interest in the
Sunday-school, but I won't hide from you that she has a way of carrying
herself and mincing her words which does _not_ befit her station. It
makes people take notice, and 'twould be more becoming she should drop
it, seeing she will have to earn her own living in service. I don't
want to say anything against Lord Blandamer either--he seems to be
well-intentioned to the church--but if tales are true the _old_ lord was
no better than he should be, and things have happened before now on your
side of the family, Miss Joliffe, that make connections feel
uncomfortable about Anastasia. We are told that the sins of the fathers
will be visited to the third and fourth generation."

"Well," Miss Joliffe said, and made a formidable pause on this adverb,
"if it is the manners of your side of the family to come and insult
people in their own houses, I am glad I belong to the other side."

She was alive to the profound gravity of such a sentiment, yet was
prepared to take her stand upon it, and awaited another charge from the
churchwarden with a dignity and confidence that would have become the
Old Guard. But no fierce passage of arms followed; there was a pause,
and if a dignified ending were desired the interview should here have
ended. But to ordinary mortals the sound of their own voices is so
musical as to deaden any sense of anticlimax; talking is continued for
talking's sake, and heroics tail off into desultory conversation. Both
sides were conscious that they had overstated their sentiments, and were
content to leave main issues undecided.

Miss Joliffe did not take the bills out of their drawer again after the
churchwarden had left her. The current of her ideas had been changed,
and for the moment she had no thought for anything except the innuendoes
of her visitor. She rehearsed to herself without difficulty the
occasions of Lord Blandamer's visits, and although she was fully
persuaded that any suspicions as to his motives were altogether without
foundation, she was forced to admit that he _had_ been at Bellevue Lodge
more than once when she had been absent. This was no doubt a pure
coincidence, but we were enjoined to be wise as serpe