CHAPTER VIII.
"I have, as you know, a general prejudice against all persons who do not succeed in the world."-- JOWETT OF BALLIOL.
Mrs.Duff-Whalley was giving a dinner-party.

This was no uncommon occurrence, for she loved to entertain.

It gave her real pleasure to provide a good meal and to see her guests enjoy it.

"Besides," as she often said, "what's the use of having everything solid for the table, and a fine house and a cook at sixty pounds a year, if nobody's any the wiser ?" It will be seen from this remark that Mrs.Duff-Whalley had not always been in a position to give dinner-parties; indeed, Mrs.Hope, that terror to the newly risen, who traced everyone back to their first rude beginnings (generally "a wee shop"), had it that the late Mr.
Duff-Whalley had begun life as a "Johnnie-a'-things" in Leith, and that his wife had been his landlady's daughter.
But the "wee shop" was in the dim past, if, indeed, it had ever existed except in Mrs.Hope's wicked, wise old head, and for many years Mrs.
Duff-Whalley had ruffled it in a world that asked no questions about the origin of money so obviously there.
Most people are weak when they come in contact with a really strong-willed woman.

No one liked Mrs.Duff-Whalley, but few, if any, withstood her advances.