The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope

Between her son, and her married daughter, and Lucy Morris, poor Lady Fawn's life had become a burden to her. Everything was astray, and there was no happiness or tranquillity at Fawn Court. Of all simply human creeds the strongest existing creed for the present in the minds of the Fawn ladies was that which had reference to the general iniquity of Lizzie Eustace. She had been the cause of all these sorrows, and she was hated so much the more because she had not been proved to be iniquitous before all the world. There had been a time when it seemed to be admitted that she was so wicked in keeping the diamonds in opposition to the continued demands made for them by Mr. Camperdown, that all people would be justified in dropping her, and Lord Fawn among the number. But since the two robberies, public opinion had veered round three or four points in Lizzie's favour, and people were beginning to say that she had been ill-used.

Then had come Mrs. Hittaway's evidence as to Lizzie's wicked doings down in Scotland -- the wicked doings which Andy Gowran had described with a vehemence so terribly moral; and that which had been at first, as it were, added to the diamonds, as a supplementary weight thrown into the scale, so that Lizzie's iniquities might bring her absolutely to the ground, had gradually assumed the position of being the first charge against her. Lady Fawn had felt no aversion to discussing the diamonds. When Lizzie was called a "thief," and a "robber," and a "swindler" by one or another of the ladies of the family -- who, in using those strong terms, whispered the words as ladies are wont to do when they desire to lessen the impropriety of the strength of their language by the gentleness of the tone in which the words are spoken -- when Lizzie was thus described in Lady Fawn's hearing in her own house, she had felt no repugnance to it.