dle of velvet and
braid would never have made any way with me, when I was your age, my
dear. Why, any mantua-maker could cut him out of snips, and have some
stuff left over."

"He is of very good family, my dear Mrs Jane," observed Lady Betty; "at
least, if I take you rightly in supposing you allude to Mr Welles."

"More pity for the family!" answered Mrs Jane. "Glad I'm not his
mother. Ruin me to keep, him in order. Cost a fortune in whip-leather.
How's Mrs Rhoda?"

"She is very well, I thank you, Madam."

"Is she crying out her eyes over that piece of fiddle-faddle?"

"I think she has finished for the present," replied Phoebe, rather
drily.

"Just you tell her he's been making up to you. Best thing you can do.
Cure her sooner than anything else."

"Mrs Phoebe, my dear, may I beg of you to do me the favour to let Madam
know that my niece, my Lady Delawarr, is much disordered in her health?"

"Certainly, my Lady Betty; I am grieved to hear it."

"Very much so, as 'tis feared; and Sir Richard hath asked me thither to
visit her, and see after matters a little while she is laid by. I
purpose to go thither this next week, but I would not do so without
paying my respects to Madam, for which honour I trust to wait on her
to-morrow. Indeed, my dear--and if you will mention it to Madam, you
will do me a service--Sir Richard's letter is not without some
importunity that should my niece be laid aside for any time, as her
physician fears, I would remove altogether, and make my home with them."

"Indeed, Madam, I will tell my mother all about it."

"I thank you, my dear; 'twill be a kindness. Of course, I would not
like to leave without Madam's concurrence."

"That you will have," quietly said Mrs Dorothy.

"Indeed, so I hope," returned Lady Betty. "I dare say Mrs Phoebe here
at least does not know that when my nephew Sir Richard was young, after
his mother died--my poor sister Penelope--he was bred up wholly in my
care, so that he looks on me rather as his mother than his aunt, and
'tis but natural that his thoughts should turn to me in this trouble."

"You must have been a young aunt, my Lady Betty," remarked Mrs Dorothy.

"Truly, but twelve years elder than my nephew," said Lady Betty, with a
smile.

"Clarissa would have told us that, without waiting to be asked," laughed
Mrs Jane. "How are the girls, my Lady Betty?"

"Very well, as I hear. You know, I guess, that Betty is engaged in
marriage?"