had caught a freshness from the morning.

The Duchess was embraced, and bore it; she herself never kissed anybody.

"You always look well, my dear, in a habit, and you know it. Tell me
what I shall do with this invitation."

"From Lady Warton? May I look?"

Chloe took a much blotted and crossed letter from the Duchess's hand.

"What were her governesses about?" said the Duchess, pointing to it.
"_Really_--the education of our class! Read it!"

... "Can I persuade you to come--and bring Mrs. Fairmile--next
Tuesday to dinner, to meet Roger Barnes and his wife? I groan at
the thought, for I think she is quite one of the most disagreeable
little creatures I ever saw. But Warton says I must--a
Lord-Lieutenant can't pick and choose!--and people as rich as they
are have to be considered. I can't imagine why it is she makes
herself so odious. All the Americans I ever knew I have liked
particularly. It is, of course, annoying that they have so much
money--but Warton says it isn't their fault--it's Protection, or
something of the kind. But Mrs. Barnes seems really to wish to
trample on us. She told Warton the other day that his
tapestries--you know, those we're so proud of--that they were bad
Flemish copies of something or other--a set belonging to a horrid
friend of hers, I think. Warton was furious. And she's made the
people at Brendon love her for ever by insisting that they have now
ruined all their pictures without exception, by the way they've had
them restored--et cetera, et cetera. She really makes us feel her
millions--and her brains--too much. We're paupers, but we're not
worms. Then there's the Archdeacon--why should she fall foul of
him? He tells Warton that her principles are really shocking. She
told him she saw no reason why people should stick to their
husbands or wives longer than it pleased them--and that in America
nobody did! He doesn't wish Mrs. Mountford to see much of
her;--though, really, my dear, I don't think Mrs. M. is likely to
give him trouble--do you? And I hear, of course, that she thinks us
all dull and stuck-up, and as ignorant as savages. It's so odd she
shouldn't even want to be liked!--a young woman in a strange
neighbourhood. But she evidently doesn't, a bit. Warton declares
she's already tired of Roger--and she's certainly not nice to him.