She was very angry with Maulevrier for having held her up to ridicule before Mr.
Hammond, who already despised her, as she believed, and whose contempt was more galling than it need have been, considering that he was a mere casual visitor who would go away and return no more.

Never till his coming had she felt her deficiencies; but in his presence she writhed under the sense of her unworthiness, and had an almost agonising consciousness of all those faults which her grandmother had told her about so often with not the slightest effect.

In those days she had not cared what Lady Maulevrier or any one else might say of her, or think of her.

She lived her life, and defied fortune.

She was worse than her reputation.