Of course she would feel it if her son made a ridiculous and degrading marriage.

But why not ?--why shouldn't he come to grief like anybody else's son?
Why should heaven and earth be moved in order to prevent it ?--especially by the woman to whose possible jealousy and pain Lady Dunstable had certainly never given the most passing thought.
All the same, the distress shown by that odd girl, Miss Wigram, and her appeal both to the painter and his niece to intervene and save the foolish youth, kept echoing in Doris's memory, although neither she nor Bentley had received it with any cordiality.

Doris had soon made out that this girl, Alice Wigram, was indeed the clergyman's daughter whom Lady Dunstable had snubbed so unkindly some twelve months before.

She was evidently a sweet-natured, susceptible creature, to whom Lord Dunstable had taken a fancy, in his fatherly way, during occasional visits to her father's rectory, and of whom he had spoken to his wife.
That Lady Dunstable should have unkindly slighted this motherless girl, who had evidently plenty of natural capacity under her shyness, was just like her, and Doris's feelings of antagonism to the tyrant were only sharpened by her acquaintance with the victim.

Why should Miss Wigram worry her self?
Lord Dunstable?
Well, but after all, capable men should keep such wives in order.