'
'Coarse and vulgar, and Uncle Silas's wife!' I echoed in extreme surprise,
for Uncle Silas was a man of fashion--a beau in his day--and might have
married women of good birth and fortune, I had no doubt, and so I expressed
myself. 'Yes, dear; so he might, and poor dear Austin was very anxious he
should, and would have helped him with a handsome settlement, I dare say,
but he chose to marry the daughter of a Denbigh innkeeper.'
'How utterly incredible!' I exclaimed.
'Not the least incredible, dear--a kind of thing not at all so uncommon as
you fancy.'
'What!--a gentleman of fashion and refinement marry a person--'
'A barmaid!--just so,' said Lady Knollys. 'I think I could count half a
dozen men of fashion who, to my knowledge, have ruined themselves just in a
similar way.'
'Well, at all events, it must be allowed that in this he proved himself
altogether unworldly.'
'Not a bit unworldly, but very vicious,' replied Cousin Monica, with a
careless little laugh. 'She was very beautiful, curiously beautiful, for
a person in her station. She was very like that Lady Hamilton who was
Nelson's sorceress--elegantly beautiful, but perfectly low and stupid.
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