uspect that class of men,' concluded Maulevrier shaking
his head significantly.

Lesbia was not much influenced by her brother's notions, she had never
been taught to think him an oracle. On the contrary, she had been told
that his life hitherto had been all foolishness.'

'When are Mary and Mr. Hammond to be married?' she asked, 'Grandmother
says they must wait a year. Mary is much too young--and so on, and so
forth. But I see no reason for waiting.'

'Surely there are reasons--financial reasons. Mr. Hammond cannot be in a
position to begin housekeeping.'

'Oh, they will risk all that. Molly is a daring girl. He proposed to her
on the top of Helvellyn, in a storm of wind and rain.'

'And she never wrote me a word about it. How very unsisterly!'

'She is as wild as a hawk, and I daresay she was too shy to tell you
anything about it.'

'Pray when did it all occur?'

'Just before I came to London.'

'Two months ago. How absurd for me to be in ignorance all this time!
Well, I hope Mary will be sensible, and not marry till Mr. Hammond is
able to give her a decent home. It would be so dreadful to have a sister
muddling in poverty, and clamouring for one's cast-off gowns.'

Maulevrier laughed at this gloomy suggestion.

'It is not easy to foretell the future,' he said, 'but I think I may
venture to promise that Molly will never wear your cast-off gowns.'

'Oh, you think she would be too proud. You don't know, perhaps, how
poverty--genteel poverty--lowers one's pride. I have heard stories from
Lady Kirkbank that would make your hair stand on end. I am beginning to
know the world.'

'I am glad of that. If you are to live in the world it is better that
you should know what it is made of. But if I had a voice or a choice in
the matter I had rather my sisters stayed at Grasmere, and remained
ignorant of the world and all its ways.'

'While you enjoy your life in London. That is just like the selfishness
of a man. Under the pretence of keeping his sisters or his wife secure
from all possible contact with evil, he buries them alive in a country
house, while he has all the wickedness for his own share in London. Oh,
I am beginning to understand the creatures.'

'I am afraid you are beginning to be wise. Remember that knowledge of
evil was the prelude to the Fall. Well, good-bye.'

'Won't you stay to lunch?'

'No, thanks, I never lunch--frightful waste of time. I shall drop in at
the _Haute Gomme_ and take a cup o