A vague alarm began to fill Lydia's mind, and she felt as if the good
establishment, the liberal allowance of pin-money, the equipages, the
clever French maid, the diamonds, and all the other delightful things
which she had looked upon almost as already her own, were suddenly
vanishing away like a dream.
Miss Graham was in no very amiable humour when, after a week's watching
and suspense, she descended to the dining-room, a small and shabbily
furnished apartment, which bore upon it the stamp peculiar to London
lodging-houses--an aspect which is just the reverse of everything we
look for in a home.
Gordon Graham was already seated at the breakfast-table.
A letter for Miss Graham lay by the side of her breakfast-cup--a bulky
document, with four stamps upon the envelope.
Lydia knew the hand too well. It was that of her French milliner,
Mademoiselle Susanne, to whom she owed a sum which she knew never could
be paid out of her own finances. The thought of this debt had been a
perpetual nightmare to her. There was no such thing as bankruptcy for a
lady of fashion in those days; and it was in the power of Mademoiselle
Susanna to put her high-bred creditor into a common prison, and detain
her there until she had passed the ordeal of the Insolvent Debtors'
Court.
Lydia opened the packet with a sinking heart. There it was, the awful
bill, with its records of elegant dresses--every one of which had been
worn with the hope of conquest, and all of which had, so far, failed to
attain the hoped-for victory.
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