We can never, dear Duchess, take too many lessons, and there's probably at the present time no more useful function to be performed among us than that dissemination of neater methods to which you're so good as to contribute." He had had another idea, but before he reached it his companion had gaily broken in.

"Awfully good one for you, Duchess--and I'm bound to say that, for a clever woman, you exposed yourself! I've at any rate a sense of comfort," Lord Petherton pursued, "in the good relations now more and more established between poor Fanny and Mrs.Brook.

Mrs.
Brook's awfully kind to her and awfully sharp, and Fanny will take things from her that she won't take from me.

I keep saying to Mrs.
Brook--don't you know?
--'Do keep hold of her and let her have it strong.' She hasn't, upon my honour, any one in the world but me." "And we know the extent of THAT resource!" the Duchess freely commented.
"That's exactly what Fanny says--that SHE knows it," Petherton good-humouredly agreed.

"She says my beastly hypocrisy makes her sick.
There are people," he pleasantly rambled on, "who are awfully free with their advice, but it's mostly fearful rot.