'
'Ah! I know you always are for Lady Merrifield! But what do you say,
then, to her prying into all that poor child's correspondence?'
'My dear, I think most people do think it advisable to have some check
on young girl's letters. Perhaps Dolores's father desired it.'
'He never put on any restrictions,' said Constance. 'I am sure he
never would. Men don't. It is always women, with their nasty, prying,
tyrannous instincts.'
'I am sure,' returned Mary, 'one would not think a child like Dolores
Mohun could have anything to conceal.'
'But she has!' cried Constance.
'No, my dear! Impossible!' exclaimed Miss Hacket, looking very much
shocked. 'Why, she can't be fourteen!'
'Oh! it is nothing of that sort. Don't think about that, Mary.'
'No, no, I know, Connie dear; you would never listen to any young
girl's confidence of that kind--so improper and so vulgar,' said Miss
Hacket, and Constance did not think it necessary to reveal her
knowledge of the post-office under the cushions at church, and other
little affairs of that sort.
'It is her uncle,' said Constance. 'Her mother, it seems, though quite
a lady, was the daughter of a professor, a very learned man, very
distinguished, and all that, but not a high family enough to please the
Mohuns, and they never were friendly with her, or treated her as an
equal.'
'That couldn't have been Lady Merrifield,' persevered Miss Hacket.
'She lamented to me herself that she had been out of England for so
many years that she had scarcely seen Mrs.
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