When Mrs. Damerel came, Nancy was even more struck than at their former meeting with her resemblance to Horace.  Eyes and lips recalled Horace at every moment.  This time, the conversation began more smoothly.  On both sides appeared a disposition to friendliness, though Nancy only marked her distrust in the hope of learning more about this mysterious relative and of being useful to her brother.

‘You have a prejudice against me,’ said the visitor, when she had inquired concerning Nancy’s health.  ’It’s only natural.  I hardly seem to you a real relative, I’m afraid—­you know so little about me; and now Horace has been laying dreadful things to my charge.’

‘He thinks you responsible for what has happened to Fanny French,’ Nancy replied, in an impartial voice.

’Yes, and I assure you he is mistaken.  Miss.  French deceived him and her own people, leading them to think that she was spending her time with me, when really she was—­who knows where?  To you I am quite ready to confess that I hoped something might come between her and Horace; but as for plotting—­really lam not so melodramatic a person.  All I did in the way of design was to give Horace an opportunity of seeing the girl in a new light.  You can imagine very well, no doubt, how she conducted herself.  I quite believe that Horace was getting tired and ashamed of her, but then came her disappearance, and that made him angry with me.’

Even the voice suggested Horace’s tones, especially when softened in familiar dialogue.  Nancy paid closer attention to the speaker’s looks and movements than to the matter of what she said.  Mrs. Damerel might possibly be a well-meaning woman—­her peculiarities might result from social habits, and not from insincerity; yet Nancy could not like her.  Everything about her prompted a question and a doubt.  How old was she?  Probably much older than she looked.  What was her breeding, her education?  Probably far less thorough than she would have one believe.  Was she in good circumstances?  Nancy suspected that her fashionable and expensive dress signified extravagance and vanity rather than wealth.

’I have brought a letter to show you which she has sent me from abroad.  Read it, and form your own conclusion.  Is it the letter of an injured innocent?’

A scrawl on foreign note-paper, which ran thus: 

DEAR MRS DAMEREL,—­Just a word to console you for the loss of my society.  I have gone to a better world, so dry your tears.  If you see my masher, tell him I’ve met with somebody a bit more like a man.  I should advise him to go to school again and finish his education.  I won’t trouble you to write.  Many thanks for the kindness you didn’t mean to do me.—­Yours in the best of spirits (I don’t mean Cognac),

FANNY (nee) FRENCH.

Nancy returned the paper with a look of disgust, saying, ’I didn’t think she was as bad as that.’

‘No more did I. It really gave me a little shock of surprise.’