It was all sorrow
and vexation together; and yet when her married daughter would press the
subject upon her, and demand her co-operation, she had no power of
escaping.
"Mamma," Mrs. Hittaway had said, "Lady Glencora Palliser has been with
her, and everybody is taking her up, and if her conduct down in Scotland
isn't proved, Frederic will be made to marry her."
"But what can I do, my dear?" Lady Fawn had asked, almost in tears.
"Insist that Frederic shall know the whole truth," replied Mrs. Hittaway
with energy. "Of course it is very disagreeable. Nobody can feel it more
than I do. It is horrible to have to talk about such things, and to think
of them."
"Indeed it is, Clara, very horrible."
"But anything, mamma, is better than that Frederic should be allowed to
marry such a woman as that. It must be proved to him--how unfit she is to
be his wife." With the view of carrying out this intention, Mrs. Hittaway
had, as we have seen, received Andy Gowran at her own house; and with the
same view she took Andy Gowran the following morning down to Richmond.
Mrs. Hittaway, and her mother, and Andy were closeted together for half an
hour, and Lady Fawn suffered grievously.
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