that Mrs. Shaw's light-hearted gaiety concealed a thoroughly depraved nature.
Not that she was bad in the sense of being malevolent; she was only intensely vain, and utterly unprincipled. She had married a man for whom she had no particle of affection, because he could give her the things for which she hungered. Being the man he was, William Shaw exerted no authority over her, and believed all she told him. She amused him; she made his life very comfortable; he enjoyed, in a vicarious way, the admiration she created, especially in the hunting-field; no whisper of evil ever reached him, and his trustful nature was incapable of harbouring a suspicion.
Mrs. Shaw, in her own way, was clever: there are so many ways of being clever. When she saw that Elizabeth's taking up her residence at Farley was inevitable, she resolved to make the best of it. She had already received the girl once, with every demonstration of delight, under her roof; the next thing was to bind Elizabeth to her by ties of gratitude and affection so strong that, having eyes she should not see, and ears she should not hear, whatsoever Mrs. Shaw desired should remain unknown. The task was easier than she anticipated. The cords that bound Elizabeth to her aunt were not, indeed, as "taut" as Mrs. Shaw conceived; but the girl's nature, as I have already said, was slow to suspect evil.
And now the scheme, which (the reader has already divined) had been growing up in a brain that was never affected by conscience, seemed nearly ripe for execution. Colonel Wybrowe was the most attractive of all her adorers. And he was very poor. He confided to her, when
