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288 attract any particular attention. I should n't much care if it did," Mrs. Daintry went on, borrowing a certain bravado, that in calmer moments was eminently foreign to her nature, from the impunity with which she had hitherto proceeded. Her project, as she heard herself unfold it, seemed to hang together so well that she felt something of the intoxication of success. "I should n't care if it did," she repeated, "so long as Florimond had a little of the conversation that he is accustomed to, and I was not in perpetual fear of his starting off."

Miss Daintry had listened attentively while her sister-in-law spoke, with eager softness, passing from point to point with a crescendo of lucidity, like a woman who had thought it all out, and had the consciousness of many reasons on her side. There had been momentary pauses, of which Lucretia had not taken advantage, so that Mrs. Daintry rested at last in the enjoyment of a security that was almost complete, and that her companion's first question was not of a nature to dispel.

"It 's so long since I have seen her. Is she pretty?" Miss Daintry inquired.

"She is decidedly striking; she has magnificent hair!" her visitor answered, almost with enthusiasm.

"Do you want Florimond to marry her?"

This, somehow, was less pertinent. "Ah, no, my dear," Mrs. Daintry rejoined, very judicially. "That is not the kind of education—the kind of milieu—one would wish for the wife of one's son." She knew,