on so well with the privileges.'

The Lady Alexandrina looked at her as though not fully aware whether
she intended to be pert. In truth, the Lady Alexandrina was rather in
the dark on the subject. It was almost impossible, it was incredible,
that a fatherless, motherless, doctor's niece should be pert to an
earl's daughter at Greshamsbury, seeing that that earl's daughter was
the cousin of the miss Greshams. And yet the Lady Alexandrina hardly
knew what other construction to put on the words she had just heard.

It was at any rate clear to her that it was not becoming that she
should just then stay any longer in that room. Whether she intended to
be pert or not, Miss Mary Thorne was, to say the least, very free. The
De Courcy ladies knew what was due to them--no ladies better; and,
therefore, the Lady Alexandrina made up her mind at once to go to her
own bedroom.

'Augusta,' she said, rising slowly from her chair with much stately
composure, 'it is nearly time to dress; will you come with me? We have
a great deal to discuss, you know.'

So she swam out of the room, and Augusta, telling Mary that she would
see her again at dinner, swam--no, tried to swim--after her. Miss
Gresham had had great advantages; but she had not been absolutely
brought up at Courcy Castle, and could not as yet quite assume the
Courcy style of swimming.

'There,' said Mary, as the door closed behind the rustling muslins of
the ladies. 'There, I have made an enemy for ever, perhaps two; that's
satisfactory.'