Abby could not help laughing at this tangled speech, but she shook her head as well, and sighed: “Oh, Selina, you goosecap!”

“I collect you mean to reproach me,” said Selina, sitting very straight in her chair, “but why you should do so I haven’t the least guess, for Fanny had a great many admirers before you went away, and when I said she was too young to be going to balls, you said I was Gothic,and also that she would enjoy her London come-out much more if she had previously been into society a little, which is perfectly true, because there is nothing so—so agonizing as to be fired off from the schoolroom, no matter how many dancing and deportment lessons one has had! Particularly if one is a trifle shy—not that I mean to say that Fanny is shy—indeed, I sometimes wonder if she is not a little too—though never unbecomingly! And if James has been tattling to you, depend upon it that odious woman who is Cornelia’s bosom-piece—which is just what one would expect of Cornelia, to make a crony of a backbiting creature like Mrs Ruscombe!—well, you may depend upon it that it was she who set him on, because Mr Calverleigh never greets that tallow-faced daughter of hers with more than common civility, in spite of having been regularly introduced, and receiving every encouragement to dangle after the girl!”

“Yes, very likely,” agreed Abby.

“There, then!” said Selina triumphantly.

There was no immediate response to this, but, after a few moments, Abigail said: “If that were all—but it isn’t, Selina! George isn’t a backbiter, and he spoke of Calverleigh with the greatest contempt, because he thought it right to warn me that the young man is not at all the thing. Besides being a gamester, it seems that he is what they call a gazetted fortune-hunter. In fact, the on-dit is that Fanny is not the first heiress he has made up to: there was some silly girl who was ready to elope with him, if you please, only last year! Fortunately, the plot was discovered, and the whole affair hushed up.”