ed the courage to execute his friend's commission.

"What is it, Fanny?" said Lady Lufton, as soon as the door was
opened; "I should have been down in half an hour, if you wanted me,
Justinia."

"Fanny has received a letter which makes her wish to speak to you at
once," said Lady Meredith.

"What letter, Fanny?" Poor Fanny's heart was in her mouth; she held
it in her hand, but had not yet quite made up her mind whether she
would show it bodily to Lady Lufton. "From Mr. Robarts," she said.

"Well; I suppose he is going to stay another week at Chaldicotes. For
my part I should be as well pleased;" and Lady Lufton's voice was
not friendly, for she was thinking of that farm in Oxfordshire. The
imprudence of the young is very sore to the prudence of their elders.
No woman could be less covetous, less grasping than Lady Lufton; but
the sale of a portion of the old family property was to her as the
loss of her own heart's blood.

"Here is the letter, Lady Lufton; perhaps you had better read it;"
and Fanny handed it to her, again keeping back the postscript. She
had read and re-read the letter downstairs, but could not make out
whether her husband had intended her to show it. From the line of the
argument she thought that he must have done so. At any rate he said
for himself more than she could say for him, and so, probably, it was
best that her ladyship should see it. Lady Lufton took it, and read
it, and her face grew blacker and blacker. Her mind was set against
the writer before she began it, and every word in it tended to make
her feel more estranged from him. "Oh, he is going to the palace, is
he? well; he must choose his own friends. Harold Smith one of his
party! It's a pity, my dear, he did not see Miss Proudie before he
met you, he might have lived to be the bishop's chaplain. Gatherum
Castle! You don't mean to tell me that he is going there? Then I tell
you fairly, Fanny, that I have done with him."

"Oh, Lady Lufton, don't say that," said Mrs. Robarts, with tears in
her eyes.

"Mamma, mamma, don't speak in that way," said Lady Meredith.

"But, my dear, what am I to say? I must speak in that way. You would
not wish me to speak falsehoods, would you? A man must choose for
himself, but he can't live with two different sets of people; at
least, not if I belong to one and the Duke of Omnium to the other.
The bishop going indeed! If there be anything that I hate it is
hypocrisy."

"There is no hypocrisy in tha