As her old friends were very few in number,
as those few lived at a distance, and as her nearest relations were
higher in the world than she was, and were said by herself to look down
upon her, the visits made to Oxney Colne were few and far between.
But now, at the period of which I am writing, such a visit was about to
be made. Miss Le Smyrger had a younger sister who had inherited a
property in the parish of Oxney Colne equal to that of the lady who
lived there; but this younger sister had inherited beauty also, and she
therefore, in early life, had found sundry lovers, one of whom became
her husband. She had married a man even then well to do in the world,
but now rich and almost mighty; a Member of Parliament, a Lord of this
and that board, a man who had a house in Eaton Square, and a park in the
north of England; and in this way her course of life had been very much
divided from that of our Miss Le Smyrger. But the Lord of the Government
board had been blessed with various children, and perhaps it was now
thought expedient to look after Aunt Penelope's Devonshire acres.
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