“As to her knowing what has happened, it can’t be kept from her long,” said Mrs. Hackbutt. “The Vincys know, for Mr. Vincy was at the meeting. It will be a great blow to him. There is his daughter as well as his sister.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Sprague. “Nobody supposes that Mr. Lydgate can go on holding up his head in Middlemarch, things look so black about the thousand pounds he took just at that man’s death. It really makes one shudder.”
“Pride must have a fall,” said Mrs. Hackbutt.
“I am not so sorry for Rosamond Vincy that was as I am for her aunt,” said Mrs. Plymdale. “She needed a lesson.”
“I suppose the Bulstrodes will go and live abroad somewhere,” said Mrs. Sprague. “That is what is generally done when there is anything disgraceful in a family.”
“And a most deadly blow it will be to Harriet,” said Mrs. Plymdale.
“If ever a woman was crushed, she will be. I pity her from my heart. And with all her faults, few women are better. From a girl she had the neatest ways, and was always good-hearted, and as open as the day. You might look into her drawers when you would—always the same. And so she has brought up Kate and Ellen. You may think how hard it will be for her to go among foreigners.”
“The doctor says that is what he should recommend the Lydgates to do,” said Mrs. Sprague. “He says Lydgate ought to have kept among the French.”
“That would suit her well enough, I dare say,” said Mrs. Plymdale; “there is that kind of lightness about her. But she got that from her mother; she