"To doubt of fidelity--to doubt of friendship! Poor duck indeed! It will go hard with her.

But she'll put it all," he concluded, "on Charlotte." Mrs.Assingham, still darkly contemplative, denied this with a headshake.

"She won't 'put' it anywhere.

She won't do with it anything anyone else would.

She'll take it all herself." "You mean she'll make it out her own fault ?" "Yes--she'll find means, somehow, to arrive at that." "Ah then," the Colonel dutifully declared, "she's indeed a little brick!" "Oh," his wife returned, "you'll see, in one way or another, to what tune!" And she spoke, of a sudden, with an approach to elation--so that, as if immediately feeling his surprise, she turned round to him.