'Who she is no one knows, but she is always attired in the richest and most becoming of outdoor costumes.
'And seems a lady?'
'Undoubtedly, so far as air and bearing go.'
'Most strange, Hew!'
'Not strange at all, Mary, as the world goes,' said he, with a laugh.
'If you are sure of all this, Hew,' said Mary, 'it is a wrong, a great wrong, to Annabelle.'
'Stuff!' said he. 'Why, Ulysses loved Penelope very well, but that did not prevent him from being very jolly with Calypso. But people are generally known by the company they frequent, and we all know who was his particular friend. What the devil can that fellow have done with himself? He is too poor for the wine trade, and must have turned digger at Ballarat, or a donkey-merchant in Texas.'
Mary gave him a glance of ineffable disdain, and turned away. She felt keenly for the anguish and wounded self-esteem of her friend! and she felt deeply mortified that the chosen friend of Cecil should be playing the present double part of Fotheringhame, for the general had seen him with this lady, and he could not be mistaken.
'And Cecil, where was he?' she would whisper to herself for the thousandth time, as she drew forth a locket with some of his hair.
'It is so little to have of him, and yet so much that it reminds me of him all!' she would say, kissing it tenderly, and retying the tiny ribbon that bound it; 'my darling Cecil—my own darling!'