d Lady Glencora, in a
voice which the servant certainly heard, and which Mrs Marsham would
have heard had she not been a little hard of hearing,--in her bonnet.

"How do, my dear?" said Mrs Marsham. "I thought I'd just come across
from Norfolk Street and see you, though I am coming to dinner in the
evening. It's only just a step, you know. How d'ye do, Miss Vavasor?"
and she made a salutation to Alice which was nearly as cold as it
could be.

Mrs Marsham was a woman who had many good points. She was poor, and
bore her poverty without complaint She was connected by blood and
friendship with people rich and titled; but she paid to none of them
egregious respect on account of their wealth or titles. She was
staunch in her friendships, and staunch in her enmities. She was no
fool, and knew well what was going on in the world. She could talk
about the last novel, or--if need be--about the Constitution. She
had been a true wife, though sometimes too strong-minded, and a
painstaking mother, whose children, however, had never loved her as
most mothers like to be loved.

The catalogue of her faults must be quite as long as that of her
virtues. She was one of those women who are ambitious of power, and
not very scrupulous as to the manner in which they obtain it. She was
hardhearted, and capable of pursuing an object without much regard
to the injury she might do. She would not flatter wealth or fawn
before a title, but she was not above any artifice by which she
might ingratiate herself with those whom it suited her purpose to
conciliate. She thought evil rather than good. She was herself untrue
in action, if not absolutely in word. I do not say that she would
coin lies, but she would willingly leave false impressions. She had
been the bosom friend, and in many things the guide in life, of Mr
Palliser's mother; and she took a special interest in Mr Palliser's
welfare. When he married, she heard the story of the loves of Burgo
and Lady Glencora; and though she thought well of the money, she was
not disposed to think very well of the bride. She made up her mind
that the young lady would want watching, and she was of opinion that
no one would be so well able to watch Lady Glencora as herself.
She had not plainly opened her mind on this matter to Mr Palliser;
she had not made any distinct suggestion to him that she would act
as Argus to his wife. Mr Palliser would have rejected any such
suggestion, and Mrs Marsham knew that he w