My card-case is on the table." Now, I thought it quite possible that _he_ might be a guest of the Ardaraghs, who had always people staying with them.

On the other hand, it was a house where I always dreaded to meet Richard Dawson, for I had heard Lady Ardaragh say, when the Dawsons were coming to Damerstown and we were all full of indignation against them, that she for her part was delighted to hear of somebody who had money and that she for one would welcome the Dawsons.
"I think money the one good and desirable thing of all the world," she had said.
I remember that Sir Arthur, who was present, looked at her in some surprise, and that she repeated the speech with greater emphasis and a heightened colour.

And afterwards my grandmother spoke of her with a certain pitying tenderness, saying to Mary Champion that she was too pretty and too young to be left so much to her own devices.

I overheard the speech by accident, being in the oriel of the library where long ago I had heard my grandmother's speech to my grandfather concerning me.

My grandmother was fond of Lady Ardaragh and so was I.
I had taken Mickey, my foster-brother who is devoted to me, to hold the pony when I should alight.