For the great Lady Southbourne to be asking her help and sympathy made Lady Dove happy.
"You can always rely on my help, indeed you can! Mutual help is our greatest duty."
"I need not say that if you have a niece, I have a son to have anxious thoughts about—and I want you to know a little secret."
"Indeed!"
"Yes, but I don't doubt Miss Whitburn has already confided in you. Edward has proposed to her, but——"
"Oh, what an honour for Antonia, but, indeed, Lady Southbourne, yours is a family any girl might be proud to enter! Of course much above her in rank."
"Edward has no foolish ideas about birth, almost a Republican on that subject, but—I see that you do not know Miss Whitburn refused him and Edward is heart-broken."
"Antonia refused the——" Lady Dove gasped.
"She is young, she was startled, but with your help and advice she might—reconsider it. Edward is more bent on it than ever."
If Lady Southbourne had been sitting in the palace of truth she would have said her dear boy had just lost a large sum on the turf.