'You must have heard that she isn't visited?'
'Well, yes; but I didn't quite understand. Your father was saying something the other day about Mr. Lawler's shooting-parties; then mamma looked at him; he laughed and spoke of "les colombes de Cythère." I intended to ask mamma what he meant, but somehow I forgot.'
'She was one of those women that walk about the streets by night.'
'Oh! really!' said Alice; and the conversation came to a sudden pause. They had never spoken upon such a subject before, and the presence of the deformed girl rendered it a doubly painful one. In her embarrassment, Alice said:
'Then I wonder Mr. Lawler married her. Was it his fault that—'
'Oh! I don't think so,' Cecilia replied, scornfully: 'but what does it matter?—she was quite good enough for him.'
At every moment a new Cecilia was revealing herself, the existence of whom Alice had not even suspected in the old; and as she hurried home she wondered if the minds of the other girls were the same as they were at school. Olive? She could see but little change in her sister; and May she had scarcely spoken to since they left school; Violet she hadn't met since they parted at Athenry for their different homes. But Cecilia—She entered the house still thinking of her, and heard Olive telling her mother that Captain Hibbert had admired her new hat.
'He told me that I'd be the handsomest girl at the Drawing-Room.'
'And what did you say, dear?'
'I asked him how he knew. Was that right?'