"What could you be saying to her?"
"She was talking about her family. I rather like Lady Rosina. She is living all alone, it seems, and almost in poverty. Perhaps there is nothing so sad in the world as the female scions of a noble but impoverished stock."
"Nothing so dull, certainly."
"People are not dull to me, if they are real. I pity that poor lady. She is proud of her blood and yet not ashamed of her poverty."
"Whatever might come of her blood, she has been all her life willing enough to get rid of her poverty. It isn't above three years since she was trying her best to marry that brewer at Silverbridge. I wish you could give your time a little to some of the other people."
"To go and shoot arrows?"
"No;—I don't want you to shoot arrows. You might act the part of host without shooting. Can't you walk about with anybody except Lady Rosina De Courcy?"
"I was walking about with Sir Orlando Drought last Sunday, and I very much prefer Lady Rosina."
"There has been no quarrel?" asked the Duchess sharply.
"Oh dear, no."