She can meet us with the rest of the women at luncheon.

We have some capital picnic luncheons on the moor, I can assure you.' 'I know she will enjoy herself with you.

She has been accustomed to a very quiet life here.' 'It is a lovely spot; but I own I cannot understand how you can have lived here exclusively during all these years--you who used to be all life and fire, loving change, action, political and diplomatic society, to dance upon the crest of the wave, as it were.

Your whole nature must have suffered some curious change.' Their close intimacy of the past warranted freedom of speech in the present.
'My nature did undergo a change, and a severe one,' answered Lady Maulevrier, gloomily.
'It was that horrid--and I daresay unfortunate scandal about his lordship; and then the sad shock of his death,' murmured Lady Kirkbank, sympathetically.

'Most women, with your youth and beauty, would have forgotten the scandal and the husband in a twelvemonth, and would have made a second marriage more brilliant than the first.