She was
allowed to read the papers in those days--or, rather, since Leonora
was always on her bed and Edward breakfasted alone and went out
early, over the estate, she was left alone with the papers. One day,
in the papers, she saw the portrait of a woman she knew very well.
Beneath it she read the words: "The Hon. Mrs Brand, plaintiff in
the remarkable divorce case reported on p. 8." Nancy hardly knew
what a divorce case was. She had been so remarkably well
brought up, and Roman Catholics do not practise divorce. I don't
know how Leonora had done it exactly. I suppose she had always
impressed it on Nancy's mind that nice women did not read these
things, and that would have been enough to make Nancy skip
those pages.
She read, at any rate, the account of the Brand divorce
case--principally because she wanted to tell Leonora about it. She
imagined that Leonora, when her headache left her, would like to
know what was happening to Mrs Brand, who lived at
Christchurch, and whom they both liked very well. The case
occupied three days, and the report that Nancy first came upon was
that of the third day. Edward, however, kept the papers of the
week, after his methodical fashion, in a rack in his gun-room, and
when she had finished her breakfast Nancy went to that quiet
apartment and had what she would have called a good read.
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