CHAPTER III.
SOPHIE MELLERBY.
Lady Scroope thought a great deal about her friend's communication, but at last made up her mind that she could do nothing till Fred should have returned.

Indeed she hardly knew what she could do when he did come back.

The more she considered it the greater seemed to her to be the difficulty of doing anything.

How is a woman, how is even a mother, to caution a young man against the danger of becoming acquainted with a pretty girl?
She could not mention Miss O'Hara's name without mentioning that of Lady Mary Quin in connexion with it.

And when asked, as of course she would be asked, as to her own information, what could she say?
She had been told that he had made himself acquainted with a widow lady who had a pretty daughter, and that was all! When young men will run into such difficulties, it is, alas, so very difficult to interfere with them! And yet the matter was of such importance as to justify almost any interference.