"I say they have." Her ladyship made her assertion boldly, having come into the room prepared for battle, and determined if possible to be victor. "Has not Fanny disgraced herself in having engaged herself to a low fellow, the scum of the earth, without saying anything even to you about it?"
"No!" shouted the Marquis, who was resolved to contradict his wife in anything she might say.
"Then I know nothing of what becomes a young woman," continued the Marchioness. "And does not Hampstead associate with all manner of low people?"
"No, never."
"Is not this George Roden a low person? Does he ever live with young men or with ladies of his own rank?"
"And yet you're angry with him because he goes to Castle Hautboy! Though, no doubt, he may meet people there quite unfit for society."
"That is not true," said the Marchioness. "My brother-in-law entertains the best company in Europe."
"He did do so when he had my son and my daughter under his roof."
"Hampstead does not belong to a single club in London," said the step-mother.
"So much the better," said the father, "as far as I know anything about the clubs. Hautboy lost fourteen hundred pounds the other day at the Pandemonium; and where did the money come from to save him from being expelled?"