ing them aloof, are some of the reasons we have
heard alleged for these acts of mental cowardice.

Mrs. Ready was a low-born woman, and Flora belonged to a very old and
respectable family. Mrs. Ready wished to rise a step higher in the
social scale, and, thinking that Flora might aid her ambitious views,
she had, after the first calls of ceremony had been exchanged, clung to
her with a pertinacity which all Mrs. Lyndsay's efforts to free herself
had been unable to shake off.

Mrs. Ready was a woman of great pretensions, and had acquired an
influence among her own set by assuming a superiority to which, in
reality, she had not the slightest claim. She considered herself a
beauty--a wit--a person of extraordinary genius, and possessed of great
literary taste. The knowledge of a few botanical names and scientific
terms, which she sported on all occasions, had conferred upon her the
title of a learned woman; while she talked with the greatest confidence
of her acquirements. _Her_ paintings--_her_ music--_her_ poetry, were
words constantly in her mouth. A few wretched daubs, some miserable
attempts at composition, and various pieces of music, played without
taste, and in shocking bad time, constituted all her claims to literary
distinction. Her confident boasting had so imposed upon the good
credulous people among whom she moved, that they really believed her to
be the talented being she pretended.

A person of very moderate abilities can be spiteful; and Mrs. Ready was
so censorious, and said when offended such bitter things, that her
neighbours tolerated her impertinence out of a weak fear, lest they
might become the victims of her slanderous tongue.

Though living in the same house with her husband, whose third wife she
was, they had long been separated, only meeting at their joyless meals.
Mrs. Ready considered her husband a very stupid animal, and did not fail
to make both him and her friends acquainted with her opinion.

"There is a fate in these things," she observed, "or you would never see
a person of _my_ superior intellect united to a creature like _that_."

The world recognised a less important agency in the ill-starred union.
Mrs. Ready was poor, and had already numbered thirty years, when she
accepted the hand of her wealthy and despised partner.

No wonder that Flora, who almost adored her husband, and was a woman of
simple habits and pretensions, should dislike Mrs. Ready: it would have
been strange in