“Wasn’t Menadew considered past it?” Mary asked, her blunt speech unimproved by seventeen years of caring for Mama.

“Well, yes, in years perhaps, but not in any other respect. I took his eye, he said, because I was clay just crying out to be a diamond of the first water. A delightful man, Menadew! Exactly the right kind of husband.”

“So I imagine.”

“Though,” Kitty said, pursuing this theme, “he expired at precisely the proper moment. I was turned out in the first stare and he was beginning to be bored.”

“Didn’t love enter into it?” Mary asked, never before having been in her sister’s company alone for long enough to satisfy her curiosity.

“Lord, no! The wedded state was very pleasant, but Menadew was my master. I obeyed his every command. Or whim. Whereas life as a widow has been unadulterated bliss. No commands or whims. Almeria Finchley doesn’t plague me, and I have the entrйe to all the best houses as well as a large income.” She extended one slender arm to display the cunning knots of jet beads ruching its long sleeve. “Madame Bellйme was able to send this around before I left Curzon Street, together with three other equally delectable mourning gowns. Warm, but in the height of fashion.” Her blue eyes, still moist from her last bout of tears, lit up. “I fear only Georgiana as a rival. Lizzie and Jane are quite frumpish, you know.”

“Jane I will grant you, Kitty, but Lizzie? One hears she is quite the jewel of Westminster.”

Kitty sniffed. “Westminster! And not even the Lords, to boot! The Commons-pah! ’Tis no great thing to queen it over a bundle of dreary MPs, I assure you.