‘Oh, for a thousand reasons,’ answered Lesbia, switching the flowers in the balcony with her light little whip.  ’First and foremost it is absurd to think of any one so buried alive as poor Mary is finding an admirer; and secondly—­well—­I don’t want to be rude to my own sister—­but Mary is not particularly attractive.’

‘Mary is the dearest girl in the world.’

‘Very likely.  I only said that she is not particularly attractive.’

’And do you think there is no attraction in goodness, in freshness and innocence, candour, generosity—?’

’I don’t know.  But I think that if Mary’s nose had been a thought longer, and if she had kept her skin free from freckles she would have been almost pretty.’

’Do you really?  Luckily for Mary the man who is going to marry her thinks her lovely.’

’I suppose he likes freckles.  I once heard a man say he did.  He said they were so original—­so much character about them.  And, pray, who is the man?’

‘Your old adorer, and my dear friend, John Hammond.’

Lesbia turned as pale as death—­pale with rage and mortification.  It was not jealousy, this pang which rent her shallow soul.  She had ceased to care for John Hammond.  The whirlpool of society had spun that first fancy out of her giddy brain.  But that a man who had loved the highest, who had worshipped her, the peerless, the beautiful, should calmly transfer his affections to her younger sister, was to the last degree exasperating.

‘Your friend Mr. Hammond must be a fickle fool,’ she exclaimed, ’who does not know his own mind from day to day.’

’Oh, but it was more than a day after you rejected him that he engaged himself to Molly.  It was all my doing, and I am proud of my work.  I took the poor fellow back to Fellside last March, bruised and broken by your cruel treatment, heartsore and depressed.  I gave him over to Molly, and Molly cured him.  Unconsciously, innocently, she won that noble heart.  Ah, Lesbia, you don’t know what a heart it is which you so nearly broke.’

‘Girls in our rank of life can’t afford to marry noble hearts,’ said Lesbia, scornfully.  ’Do you mean to tell me that Lady Maulevrier consented to the engagement?’

’She cut up rather rough at first; but Molly held her own like a young lioness—­and the grandmother gave way.  You see she has a fixed idea that Molly is a very second-rate sort of person compared with you, and that a husband who was not nearly good enough for you might pass muster for Molly; and so she gave way, and there isn’t a happier young woman in the three kingdoms than Mary Haselden.’

‘What are they to live upon?’ asked Lesbia, with an incredulous air.

’Mary will have her five hundred a year.  And Hammond is a very clever fellow.  You may be sure he will make his mark in the world.’

’And how are they to live while he is making his mark?  Five hundred a year won’t do more than pay for Mary’s frocks, if she goes into society.’