sby's dinner-party which had disagreed with her. If any one was ill,
she always attributed it to indigestion. If Mr. Alwynn coughed, or if
she read in the papers that royalty had been unavoidably prevented
attending some function at which its presence had been expected, she
instantly put down both mishaps to the same cause; and when Mrs. Alwynn
had come to a conclusion it was not her habit to keep it to herself.

She told Lady Mary the exact state in which, reasoning always by
analogy, she knew Ruth's health must be, when that lady drove over that
afternoon in the hope of seeing Ruth, partly from curiosity, or, rather,
a Christian anxiety respecting the welfare of others, and partly, too,
from a real feeling of affection for Ruth herself. Mrs. Alwynn bored her
intensely; but she sat on and on in the hope of Ruth's return, who had
gone out, Mrs. Alwynn agreeing with every remark she made, and treating
her with that pleased deference of manner which some middle-class
people, not otherwise vulgar, invariably drop into in the presence of
rank; a Scylla which is only one degree better than the Charybdis of
would-be ease of manner into which others fall. If ever the enormous
advantages of noble birth and ancient family, with all their attendant
heirlooms and hereditary instincts of refinement, chivalrous feeling,
and honor, become in future years a mark for scorn (as already they are
a mark for the envy that calls itself scorn), it will be partly the
fault of the vulgar adoration of the middle classes. Mrs. Alwynn being,
as may possibly have already transpired in the course of this narrative,
a middle-class woman herself, stuck to the hereditary instincts of _her_
class with a vengeance, and when Ruth at last came in Lady Mary was
thankful.

Her cold, pale eyes lighted up a little as she greeted Ruth, and looked
searchingly at her. She saw by the colorless lips and nervous
contraction of the forehead, and by the bright, restless fever of the
eyes that had formerly been so calm and clear, that something was
amiss--terribly amiss.

"I've been telling Lady Mary how poorly you've been, Ruth, ever since
Mrs. Thursby's dinner-party," said Mrs. Alwynn, by way of opening the
conversation.

But in spite of so auspicious a beginning the conversation flagged. Lady
Mary made a few conventional remarks to Ruth, which she answered, and
Mrs. Alwynn also; but there was a constraint which every moment
threatened a silence. Lady Mary proce