After some time spent in this manner, she was scared away by the entrance of a gentleman whom Decima called "Jan." Upon which she proceeded to the chamber she had been shown to as hers, to dress; a process which did not appear to be very elaborate by the time it took, and then she went downstairs to find Lady Verner.
Lady Verner had not quitted Lionel.

She had been grumbling and complaining all that time.

It was half the pastime of Lady Verner's life to grumble in the ears of Lionel and Decima.

Bitterly mortified had Lady Verner been when she found, upon her arrival from India, that Stephen Verner, her late husband's younger brother, had succeeded to Verner's Pride, to the exclusion of herself and of Lionel; and bitterly mortified she remained.

Whether it had been by some strange oversight on the part of old Mr.Verner, or whether it had been intentional, no provision whatever had been left by him to Lady Verner and to her children.
Stephen Verner would have remedied this.