We had no one but the dowager to look to as children--hardly another friend in the world.

She did what she liked with us; she kept the girls as close as nuns, so _they_ have never heard a hint of the old history; no breach of scandal has reached _their_ ears.

But she could not shut me up in a country house for ever, though she did succeed in keeping me away from a public school.

The time came when I had to go to the University, and there I heard all that had been said about Lord Maulevrier.

The men who told me about the old scandal in a friendly way pretended not to believe it; but one night, when I had got into a row at a wine-party with a tailor's son, he told me that if his father was a snip my grandfather was a thief, and so he thought himself the better bred of the two.