"
"Who was he?"
With much rattling of the bangles on her wrists, Fanny produced a card
from her hand-bag. Diana looked at it in dismay. It was the card of a
young solicitor whom she had once met at a local tea-party, and decided
to avoid thenceforward.
She said nothing, however, and plunged into inquiries as to her aunt and
cousins.
"Oh! they're all right. Mother's worried out of her life about money;
but, then, we've always been that poor you couldn't skin a cent off us,
so that's nothing new."
Diana murmured sympathy. She knew vaguely that her father had done a
good deal to subsidize these relations. She could only suppose that in
his ignorance he had not done enough.
Meanwhile Fanny Merton had fixed her eyes upon Diana with a curious
hostile look, almost a stare, which had entered them as she spoke of the
family poverty, and persisted as they travelled from Diana's face and
figure to the pretty and spacious room beyond. She examined everything,
in a swift keen scrutiny, and then as the pouncing glance came back to
her cousin, the girl suddenly exclaimed:
"Goodness! but you are like Aunt Sparling!"
Diana flushed crimson.
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