"I thought that woman would have taken care to wheedle him into getting the little he has to leave, long ago. Mind you don't let her come near me; and yet I should just like to inquire how she approved of my daughter Mary's marriage, after seven years of unmerited suffering? I should, I confess."
"Not now, dear mamma, not now," said Georgiana, in piteous accents.
"It must be now, or never," said Lady Anne, sharply; but to the great relief of her daughters, she did not mention such an intention again, though she was evidently busy in her own mind, calculating what it was probable Lady Rotheles might make by the effects her husband would leave. "The furniture," she muttered, "is old, and out of fashion. I don't suppose Colonel Ellerton will buy it at all. If I could speak to him, I'm sure he wouldn't. The hounds and horses will go for something, though they are gone down sadly since he left off hunting. Then there must be debts: no one ever died out of debt who pretended to any style at all! Time was, Rotheles had plenty of them; but his godfather left him a capital legacy only ten years since, and I think he has been pretty
