trashy, flashy girls,--the kind of girl you see everywhere, high and
low,--calling themselves "ladies,"--thinking themselves too good for
any honest, womanly work. Town and country, it's all the same. They're
educated; oh yes, they're educated! What sort of wives do they make,
with their education? What sort of mothers are they? Before long,
there'll be no such thing as a home. They don't know what the word
means. They'd like to live in hotels, and trollop about the streets day
and night. There won't be any servants much longer; you're lucky if you
find one of the old sort, who knows how to light a fire or wash a dish.
Go into the houses of men with small incomes; what do you find but filth
and disorder, quarrelling and misery? Young men are bad enough, I know
that; they want to begin where their fathers left off, and if they can't
do it honestly, they'll embezzle or forge. But you'll often find there's
a worthless wife at the bottom of it,--worrying and nagging because she
has a smaller house than some other woman, because she can't get silks
and furs, and wants to ride in a cab instead of an omnibus. It is
astounding to me that they don't get their necks wrung. Only wait a bit;
we shall come to that presently!'

It was a rare thing for Stephen Lord to talk at such length. He ceased
with a bitter laugh, and sat down again in his chair. Horace and his
sister waited.

'I've no more to say,' fell from their father at length. 'Go and talk
about it together, if you like.'

Horace moved sullenly towards the door, and with a glance at his sister
went out. Nancy, after lingering for a moment, spoke.

'I don't think you need have any fear of it, father.'

'Perhaps not. But if it isn't that one, it'll be another like her.
There's not much choice for a lad like Horace.'

Nancy changed her purpose of leaving the room, and drew a step nearer.

'Don't you think there _might_ have been?'

Mr. Lord turned to look at her.

'How? What do you mean?'

'I don't want to make you angry with me--'

'Say what you've got to say,' broke in her father impatiently.

'It isn't easy, when you so soon lose your temper.'

'My girl,'--for once he gazed at her directly,--'if you knew all I
have gone through in life, you wouldn't wonder at my temper being
spoilt.--What do you mean? What could I have done?'

She stood before him, and spoke with diffidence.

'Don't you think that if we had lived in a different way, Horace and I
might ha