A word or two must also be said of the old lady who made one of the party.  The Honourable Mrs. Morton was now seventy, but no old lady ever showed less signs of advanced age.  It is not to be understood from this that she was beautiful;—–­but that she was very strong.  What might be the colour of her hair, or whether she had any, no man had known for many years.  But she wore so perfect a front that some people were absolutely deluded.  She was very much wrinkled;—­ but as there are wrinkles which seem to come from the decay of those muscles which should uphold the skin, so are there others which seem to denote that the owner has simply got rid of the watery weaknesses of juvenility.  Mrs. Morton’s wrinkles were strong wrinkles.  She was thin, but always carried herself bolt upright, and would never even lean back in her chair.  She had a great idea of her duty, and hated everybody who differed from her with her whole heart.  She was the daughter of a Viscount, a fact which she never forgot for a single moment, and which she thought gave her positive superiority to all women who were not the daughters of Dukes or Marquises, or of Earls.  Therefore, as she did not live much in the fashionable world, she rarely met any one above herself.  Her own fortune on her marriage had been small, but now she was a rich woman.  Her husband had been dead nearly half a century and during the whole of that time she had been saving money.  To two charities she gave annually five pounds per annum each.  Duty demanded it, and the money was given.  Beyond that she had never been known to spend a penny in charity.  Duty, she had said more than once, required of her that she do something to repair the ravages made on the Morton property by the preposterous extravagance of the old squire in regard to the younger son, and that son’s—­child.  In her anger she had not hesitated on different occasions to call the present Reginald a bastard, though the expression was a wicked calumny for which there was no excuse.  Without any aid of hers the Morton property had repaired itself.  There had been a minority of thirteen or fourteen years, and since that time the present owner had not spent his income.  But John Morton was not himself averse to money, and had always been careful to maintain good relations with his grandmother.  She had now been asked down to Bragton in order that she might approve, if possible, of the proposed wife.  It was not likely that she should approve absolutely of anything; but to have married without an appeal to her would have been to have sent the money flying into the hands of some of her poor paternal cousins.  Arabella Trefoil was the granddaughter of a duke, and a step had so far been made in the right direction.  But Mrs. Morton knew that Lord Augustus was nobody, that there would be no money, and that Lady Augustus had been the daughter of a banker, and that her fortune had been nearly squandered.