She had never been educated up to those wider and loftier views of life, which teach a woman that houses and lands, place and power, are the supreme good.
'I can't understand how you could treat that noble-minded man so badly,' she exclaimed one day, when she and Lesbia were alone in the library, and after she had sat for ever so long, staring out of the window, meditating upon her sister's cruelty.
'Of whom are you speaking, pray ?' 'As if you didn't know! Of Mr.Hammond.' 'And pray, how do you know that he is noble-minded, or that I treated him badly ?' 'Well, as to his being noble-minded, that jumps to the eyes, as French books say.

As for your treatment of him, I was looking on all the time, and I know how unkind you were, and I heard him talking to you in the fir-copse that day.' 'You Were listening' cried Lesbia indignantly.
'I was not listening! I was passing by.

And if people choose to carry on their love affairs out of doors they must expect to be overheard.

I heard him pleading to you, telling you how he would work for you, fight the battle of life for you, asking you to be trustful and brave for his sake.

But you have a heart of stone.