"There I dare say you're right, my dear," said Lady Glencora. "I've long
felt that making presents means nothing. Only if one has a lot of money
and people like it, why shouldn't one? I've made so many to people I
hardly ever saw, that one more to Lady Tewett can't hurt."
Perhaps the most wonderful affair in that campaign was the spirited attack
which Mrs. Carbuncle made on a certain Mrs. Hanbury Smith, who for the
last six or seven years had not been among Mrs. Carbuncle's more intimate
friends. Mrs. Hanbury Smith lived with her husband in Paris, but before
her marriage had known Mrs. Carbuncle in London. Her father, Mr. Bunbury
Jones, had from certain causes chosen to show certain civilities to Mrs.
Carbuncle just at the period of his daughter's marriage, and Mrs.
Carbuncle, being perhaps at that moment well supplied with ready money,
had presented a marriage present. From that to this present day Mrs.
Carbuncle had seen nothing of Mrs. Hanbury Smith nor of Mr. Bunbury Jones,
but she was not the woman to waste the return value of such a transaction.
A present so given was seed sown in the earth--seed, indeed, that could
not be expected to give back twenty-fold, or even ten-fold, but still seed
from which a crop should be expected.
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