Ormonde and De Burgh found themselves _tete-a-tete_.
"Do you wear black every night because it suits you down to the ground?"
he asked, after very deliberately examining her from head to foot, when
he had thrown down a newspaper he had been scanning.
"No; I am in mourning. Don't you see I have only black lace and jet, and
a little crape?"
"Ah! and that constitutes mourning, eh? Well, there is very little
mourning in your laughing eyes. Who is dead?"
"My mother-in-law."
"Your mother-in-law! I didn't know Ormonde----"
"I mean Mrs. Liddell; and I am quite sorry for her; she was wonderfully
fond of me, and very kind."
"Why, what an angel you must be to fascinate a _belle-mere_! Then the
dear departed must be the mother of that Miss Liddell whom Ormonde was
recommending to me this afternoon?"
"Who--my husband? How silly! She would not suit you a bit."
"Well, Ormonde thought her fortune might."
"Oh, her fortune! that is another thing. But she will not be so very
rich if she fulfils her promise to settle part of her fortune on my
boys. You see, if their poor father had lived, he would have shared
their uncle's money with his sister. Now it is too hideously unjust that
my poor dear boys should have nothing, and Katherine is very properly
going to make it up to them.
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