'An heiress! But we are three, father,' expostulated Charlie with much gravity. 'What is the use of one heiress among so many?'

'We must draw lots for her,' said Hugh. 'I hope I shall win her; and as he said it he had the effrontery to squeeze Clara's hand under the table.

'I do think, in a case of this kind,' observed Gurdon, 'that the claim of a guest should be considered. If there was a deficiency of lunch, I conclude I should be helped before either Hugh or Charles; and if there are not heiresses enough to go round, I ought similarly to be offered the first refusal.'

'But no one would be such a fool as to refuse her,' objected Sir Richard. She has twelve thousand pounds a year in her own right-all made by her late father at baccarat.'

'At baccarat ! How can you be so silly, Richard!' exclaimed Lady Trevor; her interest in behalf of her eldest-born was aroused-maternal hope began to animate her frame.

'Fact, upon my life, Nannie. I knew the man myself—years and years ago,' he added in an apologetic tone. 'Kept a hell-I mean a bank-at Paris; and was a great chum of poor Westrop's.' "Then she is a friend of Mrs. Westrop's,' remarked Lady Trevor. 'Yes; it was so like that woman that she kept it dark about the young lady who was staying with her being such a "catch" until she got her invited to Lady Joddrell's party. The Chief Baroness' (such was the name by which the not very popular mistress of Catesby Hall was known in the county, though her late husband had borne no such title as it implied) is wild, I'm told, at having asked her; for what chance will any of her tribe of daughters have against a three-hundred-thousand-pounder?"

·

And what is the young lady's name?' asked Lady Trevor. 'Mumchance.'

A roar of laughter from the young men followed this announcement; there was even a ripple of mirth from Clara and Lucy. 'What does it signify,' expostulated Gurdon, 'when one is going to change it?

Three hundred thousand pounds! Think of it!' exclaimed Sir Richard with emotion.

'I am thinking of it, sir,' said Charlie dutifully, as his foot wandered in search of a smaller one under the table, and pressed it tenderly to prove that he was only joking.

་

My difficulty with a strange young lady is, that I never know what to talk about,' observed Hugh, but in this case there will be no such obstacle; I dote on baccarat.'

'You need not tell me that,' said Sir Richard sullenly; his son had awakened an unpleasant reminiscence, and his short-lived gaiety was dead.

Lady Trevor had still more reason for depression. An un

looked-for chance, as promising as she could have imagined in her dreams, had indeed presented itself; but she had imperilled it by her own act! What would she have given had she never written that note to Lady Joddrell, or afterwards, had she spared her eloquence in inducing Mrs. Thorne to waive her scruples? Of course there would have been still the initial difficulty in persuading her obstinate firstborn to have dispensed with Clara's company; but had he known of the splendid prospects in store for him, he would surely have consented to give up the passing gratification of a pretty girl's society for the chance of realizing them. Even as it was, however, he would hardly be so blind to his own interests as to suffer mere beauty to eclipse them. There was at least a new string to her bow, in Miss Mumchance.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CATESBY HALL.

CATESBY HALL was a very fine place indeed, fit to take rank, if not among the palaces, at least among the first country mansions in England; even its late master, notwithstanding a large income independent of his profession, had been thought to be 'overhoused' in it, and his widow was notoriously in that uncomfortable plight.

Instead of twenty gardeners, she kept but twelve, who gave their attention much more to fruit and vegetables than to flowers; she thought it superfluous not only to paint the lily, but to cultivate it, and in superintending her hot-houses had an eye to Covent Garden rather than her own table. She had picked up the idea that a lack of formality was a great feature in landscape gardening, and made it the excuse for creating a 'wilderness'-by the simple means of letting things alone-out of a large portion of the grounds. You must come and see my bluebells,' was an invitation she always gave to her visitors in the early summer, and thereupon would conduct them to these simple bowers, which looked uncommonly like a garden run to seed.

Nevertheless, all immediately about the Hall was kept spick and span, and still made a goodly show. The daisies on the lawn were duly executed every morning; the terraces-of which there were no less than three, each broad enough to turn a coach and four upon-rolled smooth as blotting-paper; the urns and parterres filled with flowers in their season. The house, which was comparatively modern, had none of the picturesqueness of Mirbridge Court, but it was twice its size, and, being built upon an eminence, commanded a much finer view. It had been the humour of its proprietor to compare himself as he stood at his study-window to Robinson Crusoe, because he was monarch of all

CATESBY HALL.

he surveyed; but the study at Catesby, it had been ill-naturedly
remarked, was rather 'shut in' as regarded outlook, and the
parallel was otherwise not very exact, since one can hardly say
one's right there is none to dispute' to property that one has
borrowed money to purchase. In that unaccustomed flight of
imagination the old lawyer had even forgotten his mortgages;
but that Lethean draught was denied to his relict.
whispered in country drawing-rooms that Lady Joddrell, not-
withstanding the state she still occasionally displayed, was a
little pressed for money;' the more 'liberal shepherds' of the
dining-room gave it a grosser name: the Chief Baroness was,
they said, 'devilish hard up.'

seen.

It was

On the evening of the dinner-party, of which so much has been said, there was, however, not a sign of impecuniosity to be The ancient hospitality of Catesby Hall was revived in all its splendour. The chief butler was once more himself again, the diminished ranks of his army of subordinates having been recruited from London, where myriads can still be obtained, at a moment's notice, of a commodity of which (it would be idle for the great Republic to deny it) New York cannot furnish many specimens, namely, powdered footmen. Low on the sand and loud on the stone,' carriage after carriage dashed up to the stately portals, full of epxectant guests. Their curiosity, however, was far more excited about the party from the Court than about anything that might be provided for them at the Hall. By many of them Sir Richard and his sons had not yet been beheld; and Lady Trevor was a stranger to all of them save to the tenants of the Rector's modest brougham; it was hired for the occasion, and made no attempt to look as if it were otherwise, but the freight of beauty it carried was without peer. If it had not been for the presence of her sister, Lucy would have carried She was attired in simple away the bell; and to two fond hearts-those of her father and her lover-it seemed that she did so.

white, with no ornaments of any kind save one white rose in her
bosom, that had never bloomed in the Rectory garden; amidst
the splendid toilettes of the other gay ladies, she looked indeed
bien distinguée, like a snowdrop among tiger-lilies. Clara was in
white also, but she had some diamonds in her hair; they had
belonged to her mother before she was married, and formed her
only stock of jewellery; but Mrs. Thorne had never congratu-
lated herself upon their possession so much as now,when she placed
them for the first time at her daughter's service. They were of
The very footman
no great value, but their glittering splendour carried out the
queenlike suggestion of Clara's beauty.
hesitated in letting down the steps, as he caught sight of her;
the butler stammered from the half-glance that fell on her as he
announced her father's name. Young Joddrell, standing by his

mother's side at the entrance to the great drawing-room, involuntarily invoked the blessing of Heaven on his soul and body as he beheld her majestic form. Lady Joddrell's heart died within her as she welcomed her with effusion; she had seen her before, of course, but never looking so entrancingly beautiful, and she not only trembled for her girls, but for her boys. What a fool, she thought, Lady Trevor must be, to encourage the visits of such a tempter to her Eden; how could she expect that innocent angel, her first-born, to escape her wiles?

The hired horse had been slow of foot, and most of the company had arrived before the Rectory party, which undesignedly made the impression Clara's entrance produced the greater. By the ladies this was exceedingly resented; it is only persons of title, or of colossal wealth, who are privileged to keep other people waiting for their dinner; the Thornes indeed had not done this, but they should have known their proper place in the county, and come early. The Rector's simple explanation that the horse from the Bell had only three legs,' popular as he was with everybody, was felt to be insufficient.

Miss Mumchance, who had three hundred thousand pounds of her own, and might reasonably have been thirty minutes late, had already come. She was a tall and rather lanky girl; not very young nor very lovely, but with a good-natured face; her hair, if she had been poorer, would have been called red; being studded with diamonds of a large size, it was held to be auburn or golden. Mrs. Westrop left her side to welcome the new-comers.

'My dear Mrs. Thorne,' she whispered impulsively, 'how can you make us all so horribly jealous? You have brought with you the handsomest girl in Europe. I don't say I hope she is as good as she looks, because I dislike saints.'

Still, I hope she is tolerably good,' said Mrs. Thorne, smiling. The wicked widow's compliment had pleased her in spite of herself. But Mrs. Westrop was no favourite of hers.

'Lady Joddrell is furious with me for bringing my heiress, but Mary Anne (that's her dreadful name) will be nowhere tonight, for all her diamonds; you must come and look at them presently, they are as big as marbles; and they might just as well be marbles; your Clara's brilliants-though they are not worth fifty pounds, I suppose-will utterly eclipse them. Ah, dear!' here the little woman sighed profoundly—'what a thing it is to be beautiful and young!'

So many pretty things-but mostly like the French bonbons, instanced by Mr. Charles Trevor, wrapping up something not quite so pretty under them-were said, indeed, to Mrs. Thorne about her daughter's surpassing beauty, that it was a great relief to her when Sir Richard's party arrived-the last to come-and turned further attention into another channel. Lady Trevor, of

course, then became the cynosure of all eyes. 'How lovely she is for her age! How impossible it seems that she should be the mother of two grown-up sons!' 'How thoroughly French she looks! What an air of distinction she has!''How perfectly at her ease she seems!' Such were the remarks that dropped from the good-natured ones; others said, 'How admirably she is got up! Anyone would look young who employed such a milliner!' 'One would really hardly recognise it for paint!' 'What an audacious air she has! They say that she stormed the citadel of her husband's heart in twenty-four hours!' 'Poor Sir Richard !'

It was a terrible moment for the subject of these various criticisms. Once and only once had she been at Catesby Hall, having accompanied the late Lady Trevor thither, as her humble companion, on a morning call. Her reception then had indeed been very different from the way in which she had been welcomed that evening. Lady Joddrell had not only snubbed her, but shown by her manner, as plainly as she dared in the presence of her patroness, how highly she had disapproved of her being lifted out of her proper sphere. She had resented such cruel conduct in her heart most bitterly, for it was not her fault that her dear mistress had chosen to do her honour; but it was not for her plebeian lips to murmur. There had even been a partly-heard conversation between the two high-born ladies, in which she had caught the term 'a beggar on horseback,' and knew that it had been applied to herself. Her blood, too, was not ditch water,' and it had flushed to her forehead at the indignity; but, looking back upon it all now, it was curious how her feelings had changed with respect to it. So far from it reviving any animosity against her hostess, she even admitted to herself that that lady had been right; for, indeed, had not the very thing come to pass (though Lady Joddrell knew not how true a prophet she had been) against which she had warned her visitor? Lady Trevor had a son of her own now, in a similar though a less deadly peril, and she could sympathize with her, though, as it were, against her very self, if indeed she could be said to be the same person.

It was, therefore, without the least hypocrisy that she now returned Lady Joddrell's kind salutatious. She wished to be friends with her, and, if Hugh could not be induced to woo the heiress, something more. None of the Miss Joddrells were well dowered; but an alliance with any one of them would strengthen Hugh's position in the county, and be infinitely preferable to a union with Clara Thorne. The two mothers, having the same aim at heart, were genuinely cordial to one another. The Chief Baroness not only sheathed her sharp tongue as regarded the new-comer, but threw over her the ægis of her protection. The