Reiver's
'rickshaw wheels.
There was nothing good about Mrs. Reiver, unless it was her dress.
She was bad from her hair--which started life on a Brittany's
girl's head--to her boot-heels, which were two and three-eighth
inches high. She was not honestly mischievous like Mrs. Hauksbee;
she was wicked in a business-like way.
There was never any scandal--she had not generous impulses enough
for that. She was the exception which proved the rule that Anglo-
Indian ladies are in every way as nice as their sisters at Home.
She spent her life in proving that rule.
Mrs. Hauksbee and she hated each other fervently. They heard far
too much to clash; but the things they said of each other were
startling--not to say original. Mrs. Hauksbee was honest--honest
as her own front teeth--and, but for her love of mischief, would
have been a woman's woman. There was no honesty about Mrs. Reiver;
nothing but selfishness. And at the beginning of the season, poor
little Pluffles fell a prey to her. She laid herself out to that
end, and who was Pluffles, to resist? He went on trusting to his
judgment, and he got judged.
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