It was all a hollow mockery. Indeed it seemed just now
that the only real thing in life was those accursed bills, which would
have to be paid somehow.
She had told Lady Maulevrier nothing about them as yet. She had allowed
herself to be advised by Lady Kirkbank, and she had taken time to think.
But thought had given her no help. The days were gliding onward, and
Lady Maulevrier would have to be told.
She meditated perplexedly about her grandmother's income. She had never
heard the extent of it, but had taken for granted that Lady Maulevrier
was rich. Would three thousand pounds make a great inroad on that
income? Would it be a year's income?--half a year's? Lesbia had no idea.
Life at Fellside was carried on in an elegant manner--with considerable
luxury in house and garden--a luxury of flowers, a lavish expenditure of
labour. Yet the expenditure of Lady Maulevrier's existence, spent always
on the same spot, must be as nothing to the money spent in such a life
as Lady Kirkbank's, which involved the keeping up of three or four
houses, and costly journeys to and fro, and incessant change of attire.
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