"Oh no!—you never think anybody does," sneered her sister. "I could not have associated with such a woman. She must have known what was said of her. I wonder that she was brazen enough to show herself in public at all."
"But think, Isabel! I do not believe she did know. You know she was not at all clever."
"She was half-witted, or not much better," was the answer. "Oh yes, I know that. But she must have known."
"I do not think she did!" said Lady Sybil earnestly.
"Then she ought to have known!" sharply replied Lady Isabel. "I wonder they did not shut her up. She was a pest to society."
"O Isabel!" deprecated her sister. "She was very good-natured."
"Sybil, I never saw any one like you! You would have found a good word for Judas Iscariot."
"Hardly," said Lady Sybil, just as gently as before. "But perhaps I might have helped finding evil ones."
"There are pearl-gatherers and dirt-gatherers," quietly remarked Lady Judith, who had hitherto listened in silence. "The latter have by far the larger cargo, but the handful of the former outweighs it in value."
"What do you mean, holy Mother?" inquired Lady Isabel, turning quickly to her—rather too sharply, I thought, to be altogether respectful.