Even the children were taken out of their
sister's way as much as possible, so that their morals should not be
corrupted by evil communication. When she complained of this to their
mother the Marchioness merely drew herself up and was silent. Were
it possible she would have altogether separated her darlings from
contact with their sister, not because she thought that the darlings
would in truth be injured,--as to which she had no fears at all,
seeing that the darlings were subject to her own influences,--but in
order that the punishment to Lady Frances might be the more complete.
The circumstances being such as they were, there should be no family
love, no fraternal sports, no softnesses, no mercy. There must, she
thought, have come from the blood of that first wife a stain of
impurity which had made her children altogether unfit for the rank to
which they had unfortunately been born. This iniquity on the part of
Lady Frances, this disgrace which made her absolutely tremble as she
thought of it, this abominable affection for an inferior creature,
acerbated her feelings even against Lord Hampstead. The two were
altogether so base as to make her think that they could not be
intended by Divine Providence to stand permanently in the way of
the glory of the family. Something certainly would happen. It would
turn out that they were not truly the legitimate children of a real
Marchioness. Some beautiful scheme of romance would discover itself
to save her and her darlings, and all the Traffords and all the
Montressors from the terrible abomination with which they were
threatened by these interlopers. The idea dwelt in her mind till it
became an almost fixed conviction that Lord Frederic would live to
become Lord Hampstead,--or probably Lord Highgate, as there was a
third title in the family, and the name of Hampstead must for a time
be held to have been disgraced,--and in due course of happy time
Marquis of Kingsbury. Hitherto she had been accustomed to speak to
her own babies of their elder brother with something of that respect
which was due to the future head of the family; but in these days she
altered her tone when they spoke to her of Jack, as they would call
him, and she, from herself, never mentioned his name to them. "Is
Fanny naughty?" Lord Frederic asked one day. To this she made no
reply. "Is Fanny very naughty?" the boy persisted in asking. To this
she nodded her head solemnly. "What has Fanny done, mamma?" At this