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to account for Mrs. Hammond's conduct in some measure, we must go back in her history some twenty years. Though she was not a very genial or benevolent woman she had many excellent qualities, and would never have thrown the burden of little Amy Staunton on her despised neighbours if she had not had a special reason of her own for disliking and suspecting her.

Although Mrs. Hammond had always held her head very high in Australia, and spoke of society in England as if she had always mixed on equal terms with the very best county people; though she dreaded and opposed the intrusion of parvenus and self-made men into the charmed circle of colonial aristocracy, and was especially exclusive with regard to her children, she had at one period of her life been on her promotion, and