Mr Witt's Widow by Antonio Hope

It is a notorious fact that men of all ages and conditions quarrel, and quarrel sometimes with violence. Women also, of a low social grade, are not strangers to discord, and the pen of satire has not spared the tiffs and wrangles that arise between elderly ladies of irreproachable position, and between young ladies of possibly not irreproachable morals. It is harder to believe, harder especially for young men whose beards are yet soft upon their chins, that graceful gentle girlhood quarrels too. Nobody would believe it, if there were not sisters in the world; but, unhappily, in spite of the natural tendency to suppose that all attributes distinctively earthy are confined to his own sisters, and have no place in the sisters of his friends, a man of reflection, checking his observations in the various methods suggested by logicians, is forced to conclude that here is another instance of the old truth, that a thing is not to be considered non-existent merely because it is not visible to a person who is not meant to see it. This much apology for the incident which follows is felt to be necessary in the interest of the narrator's reputation for realism.

The fact is that there had been what reporters call a "scene" at Mrs. Pocklington's. It so fell out that Isabel Bourne, accompanied by Maud Neston, called on Laura to receive congratulations. Laura did her duty, felicitated her friend on Tommy in possession and Tommy's title in reversion, and loyally suppressed her personal opinion on the part these two factors had respectively played in producing the announced result. Her forbearance was ill-requited; for Maud, by way of clinching the matter and conclusively demonstrating the satisfactory position of affairs, must needs remark, "And what a lesson it will be for George!"