"Poor Connie!" sighed Archibald, "she was a fool to marry that old drybones Provence."
"Your family need not have cut her for it, all the same," said his wife. " I have always thought—and I would say it with my dying breath—that she was treated very badly."
"I don't know about that," said Archibald; "we were all very well brought up and accustomed to good society—you must own it was rather a come-down to have her marry a foreigner, and a professional into the bargain. The man actually gave lessons; and you may say what you like, but at that time that was considered—well—an inferior sort of thing to do."
"He was a gentleman by birth," said Harriet; "you can't deny that."
"I don't believe much in French families," said her husband; "no one ever knows anything about 'em so far as I can make out. Every beastly little Frenchman one meets can't be descended from the lost Dauphin or the Huguenots. I call it dam cheek on their part to expect an educated Englishman to believe it. Besides, what's a Huguenot? I thought most of 'em were chopped up."
"Don't," said his wife.
"I dare say Provence was all right—I hope so, at all events, for the sake of the family."
"He was an interesting-looking man."
"Interesting! Yes, I suppose women would call a man like that—all eyes and baggy trousers—interesting."
"Poor creature! Well, he's dead now, and so is Constance."
"Gawd knows what's to become of Godfrey. What
