iselda from those
Goths, into whose hands she has fallen. What a set! Goodness! it's as
fine as a play!"

Leslie crossed the room, and bowing before Griselda, said:

"Lady Betty would be pleased if you joined her, Miss Mainwaring."

Griselda rose, and, bowing to her three companions, walked towards the
opposite side of the room.

"I knew she was somebody," Mrs. Greenwood exclaimed. "Lady Betty--did
you hear? And what a vastly genteel young man!--one of her admirers, no
doubt. Well, girls, shall we take a turn? For my part I am getting
sleepy;" and a prolonged yawn, which was heard as well as seen,
announced the fact to those who were near that Mrs. Greenwood had had
enough of the Pump Room for that day.

"My dear girl!" Lady Betty exclaimed when Griselda joined her. "Who will
you take up with next? Those vulgar folks! Did you ever see anything
like the feet of the young one? I declare I'd wear a longer gown if I
had such duck's feet!--and the waddle matches--look!"

Lady Betty's giggle was a well-known sound in any society she honoured
with her presence, and when she could get a companion like the
empty-headed Lord Basingstoke, she delighted to sit and "quiz" those
whom she thought beneath her in the social scale.

"Griselda! She is offended. Look how she is strutting off! He! he! he!"

And Lord Basingstoke echoed the laugh in a languid fashion, Lady Betty
leaning back and looking up at him with what she thought her most
bewitching smile.

"I think it is very ill-bred to make remarks on people!" Griselda said,
"and very unkind to hurt their feelings, as you must have hurt that
lady's."

Griselda spoke with some vehemence, which she was apt to do, when her
feelings were strongly moved.

"You see how I'm lectured," Lady Betty said, with the usual
accompaniment--"the giggling fugue," as her enemies called it.
"Griselda," she said, trying to hide her vexation, "you are very good to
look after my behaviour. Poor little me! I want someone, don't I, Mr.
Travers? It is news to hear I am 'ill-bred.' What next, I wonder?"

But Griselda held her own, and repeated:

"I must think it ill-bred in any society to turn other folks into
ridicule, and I am quite sure no one can call it kind!"

"My dear, may I ask you to mind your own business?" was said _sotto
voce_ as Lady Betty rose, declaring it was time for her third glass of
water, and Lord Basingstoke escorted her to the inner room, where the
invalids assembled to