CHAPTER VIII.
The girl had in course of time every opportunity to inspect these documents, and they a little disappointed her; but in the mean while there had been more talk, and it had led to her saying, as if her friend's guarantee of a life of elegance were not quite definite: "Well, I see every one at _my_ place." "Every one ?" "Lots of swells.

They flock.

They live, you know, all round, and the place is filled with all the smart people, all the fast people, those whose names are in the papers--mamma has still The Morning Post--and who come up for the season." Mrs.Jordan took this in with complete intelligence.

"Yes, and I dare say it's some of your people that _I_ do." Her companion assented, but discriminated.

"I doubt if you 'do' them as much as I! Their affairs, their appointments and arrangements, their little games and secrets and vices--those things all pass before me." This was a picture that could make a clergyman's widow not imperceptibly gasp; it was in intention moreover something of a retort to the thousand tulips.