even more steadily at bay--and we will
for a moment lift the veil for our readers and disclose why.

"It _isn't_ unkind," quoth Maud, on one occasion. "I wouldn't be unkind
for worlds, but it simply can't be done. Leo is no longer one of us; she
belongs to the Stubby people among whom she lives,--and if we were to
begin talking about them, we couldn't help letting out what we think--at
least, perhaps I could, but you couldn't." It was to Syb she spoke, and
Syb lifted her eyebrows.

"I daresay; I can't see any harm if I did. I should rather like to hear
about the Stubby people and their queerities."

"Not from Leo's point of view. She would not see what you call their
'queerities'. She takes them all _au serieux_."

"Are you sure she does? She must see they are different from the people
here, at all events; and----"

"How is she to see?" interrupted Maud quickly. "She never went anywhere
before her marriage. She had only been to one ball, and a few cricket
matches. Actually she had never once dined at a house in the
neighbourhood."

"If she had, she might not have been so ready to take Godfrey. I
couldn't have stood Godfrey as a husband myself, though I really don't
mind him as a brother-in-law; and I think it a little hard that Leo
should be tabooed."

"I tell you she isn't tabooed. It is for her own sake that it would be a
pity her eyes should be opened. She has got to mix in inferior society,
and why make her discontented with it?"

"All right, you needn't be excited. I am only rather sorry sometimes
when the child looks disappointed.--I say, I do think father ought not
to have been in such a hurry to marry her off," cried Sybil, with sudden
energy. "I _do_ think it. What good did it do? She's rich, and that's
all--for I don't count Godfrey. I don't believe she cares for him more
than she would for any other tolerably nice man who went for her as he
did. I don't believe----"

"Bother what you believe!" Maud arrested the flow; "the thing is that
we can't talk familiarly with Leo, as Leo now is. We can't let ourselves
go. You must see this for yourself? Why, only to-night when she and
Godfrey were so elated over the civility of their new 'Chairman,' and
seemed to expect us all to be astonished and impressed, because he is
such a bigwig and it was such a terrific condescension, I didn't dare to
look at father. I knew the unutterable contempt that filled his soul.
Condescension from an absolute nobody to one of