eve he belonged to a very
fast set before he married her."

"And she? Is she nice?"

"She may be very nice for all I know."

"I think," said Anne, "she wouldn't call if she wasn't nice, you know."

She meant that if Mrs. Lawson Hannay hadn't been nice Walter would never
have sanctioned her calling.

"Oh, as for that," said her friend, "you know what Scale is. The less
nice they are the more they keep on calling. But I should think"--she had
suddenly perceived where Anne's argument was tending--"she is probably
all right."

"Do you know anything of Mr. Charlie Gorst?"

"No. But Johnson does. At least I'm sure he's met him."

Mrs. Eliott saw it all. Poor Anne was being besieged, bombarded by her
husband's set.

"Then he isn't impossible?"

"Oh no, the Gorsts are a very old Lincolnshire family. Quite grand. What
a number of people you're going to know, my dear. But, your husband isn't
to take you away from _all_ your old friends."

"He isn't taking me anywhere. I shall stay," said Anne proudly, "exactly
where I was before."

She was determined that her old friends should never know to what a
sorrowful place she had been taken.

"You dear," said Mrs. Eliott, holding out a suddenly caressing hand.

Anne trembled a little under the caress. "Fanny," said she, "I want you
to know him."

"I mean to," said Mrs. Eliott hurriedly.

"And I want him, even more, to know you."

"Then," Mrs. Elliot argued to herself, "she knows nothing; or she never
could suppose we would be kindred spirits."

But she carried it off triumphantly. "Well," said she, "I hope you're
free for the fifteenth?"

"The fifteenth?"

"Yes, or any other evening. We want to give a little dinner, dear, to you
and to your husband--for him to meet all your friends."

Anne tried not to look too grateful.

The upward way, then, was being prepared for him. Beneficent
intelligences were at work, influences were in the air, helping her
to raise him.

In her gladness she had failed to see that, considering the very obvious
nature of the civility, Fanny Eliott was making the least shade too much
of it.

CHAPTER VII

Anne presented herself that evening in her husband's study with a sheaf
of visiting cards in her hand. She thought it possible that she might
obtain further illumination by confronting him with them.

"Walter," said she "all these people have called on us. What do you think
I'd better do?"

"I think you'll have to call