Smithson. She used to talk of what she would do
for her own people--the poor old father, buried alive in a damp
parsonage, and struggling every winter with chronic bronchitis; the four
younger sisters pining in dulness and penury; the mother who hardly knew
what it was to rest from the continual worries of daily life.'
'Poor things!' sighed Lesbia, gazing admiringly at the handle of her
last new sunshade.
'Belle used to talk of what she would do for them all,' pursued Lady
Kirkbank. 'Father should go every year to the villa at Monte Carlo;
mother and the girls should have a month in Park Lane every season, and
their autumn holiday at one of Mr. Smithson's country houses. I knew the
world well enough to be sure that this kind of thing would never answer
with a man like Smithson. It is only one man in a thousand--the modern
Arthur, the modern Quixote--who will marry a whole family. I told Belle
as much, but she laughed. She felt so secure of her power over the man.
"He will do anything I ask him," she said.'
'Miss Trinder must be an extraordinary young person,' observed Lesbia,
scornfully.
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