was Lady Fermor's will to keep her own | intrepidity, while her eyes twinkled mali. counsel not many people would venture to ciously. dispute the point with her. Even Lucy "Because I am determined to know," with the rest of the Acton family and he answered after an instant's pause. Lady Thwaite, who were the most sur- "And by what right do you claim to be prised and perplexed at the unexpected, made acquainted with my granddaughter's unexplained, undefined visit somewhere whereabouts?" she repeated her counterto somebody, which Iris was paying, sub-challenge. "Really, Sir William, you mitted to be kept for a while in ignorance. were always an original, and at one time, The mystery, however, began to make it I believe, I rather liked your originality, self felt, and within a fortnight of the but that time is past, and there are limits event Lady Fermor's tranquillity was dis- even to good things." turbed, and she was assailed and called to account in her own house, which ought to have been her castle.

Her sarcasm did not ruffle his mood; he had ceased to wince at the prick of such weapons, and he was also able to proclaim a right which in his eyes was all-sufficient to authorize his presence and interrogation. "You were willing to give her and her happiness into my keeping once. Is not that enough to entitle me to ask what has come to her?"

Lady Fermor had returned from her afternoon drive, and had gone into her drawing-room for half an hour, when a mesaage was brought to her from a former friend, who had arrived at the frame of mind when forms and ceremonies were indifferent to him. Sir William Thwaite "Very little has come to her, as you bade a servant tell Lady Fermor that he say, that I know of," answered Lady Fer wished to see her, and had not the suavity mor with an insolent criticism of his En. to add. "By her ladyship's leave," or "Ifglish, and with exasperating nonchalance. the call is convenient for her," notwith-"If she had many rejected lovers it would standing that he had long ceased to be a be an awkward precedent to establish, daily visitor at Lambford. He had not been there since the night of Miss Compton's ball. He had not spoken to Lady Fermor since she left him in a rage, in the teeth of a thunder-storm, after her last visit to Whitehills. He had been a husband and a widower in the interval.

As the message was delivered to the venerable woman her sunken eyes gave a warlike flash, and she managed to sit erect after she had snapped out the two words, "Admit him." Strife, and not peace, was her natural element. In spite of her years, a tough encounter, a rousing contention, a battle of words, were more acceptable to her than sluggish rest.

Sir William came to his former haunt, looking too stern to be lightly discomposed and discomfited. He gave a hurried glance round while he was mechanically saying "Good morning" to his former ally; and the sternness was intensified on a face which, when it was not lit up with a smile, had always been more the type of a certain form of comely strength, than of sunshine and sweetness.

"It is a treat to see you nowadays, Sir William," said Lady Fermor tentatively, motioning him to a seat beside her.

But he did not sit down, and he did not answer her, save by telling his errand with brutal straightforwardness. "Where is Miss Compton, Lady Fermor?"

Why do you ask?" she parried his question with the utmost coolness and

that each man might come and bore me with his curiosity to hear the last news of his old flame. But she was not much of a belle, poor thing! and, to tell the truth, I do not know that she had the glory of dismissing any suitor save one; therefore, I do not mind saying to you that I know nothing about her."

"It ain't possible," he cried hotly; "she was in your care. Women of your class don't let girls go out into the world on their own hook, to do what they like, without having somebody to look after them. Your notion is, that girls cannot take care of themselves no more than if they were babies."

"And I dare say we are right," she interjected briskly.

“And you make and keep them helpless," he went on without appearing to pay any attention to her, "till they are too delicate and dainty to stand on their own feet and make their own way. I know she isn't like that, and I haven't such a bad opinion of the world as to think that there are many, either gentle or simple, that would harm her. But it ain't kind or considerate that she should be exposed to what another young lady could not face; and though she may not be right down harmed, she may be frightened and worried. Lady Fermor, I insist on your giv. ing me satisfaction."

"In my day it was gentlemen who gave each other satisfaction," said Lady Fer

mor airily; "a good manly custom which,
like some other customs not half so bad
as they were called, has passed away
but let them go, they served my time. I
assure you, Sir William, I am not account-
able for the young lady in whom you are
pleased to take so deep an interest. I am
sorry not to have it in my power to say
she returns it, or would thank you for it,'
with a little mocking, palsied bow to her
listener. "She took our relations, hers
and mine, into her own hands. Accord
ing to your definition, she assumed the
privilege of the lower orders. She said it
was better we should part; she could not
stay any longer with me. I am too old a
woman to pretend to fight with disobedi-
ent, undutiful girls, or boys either, even
though they are my grandchildren. She
said she would go, and she went-
is the long and the short of it."
"Before it came to that, my lady, you
had something to answer for," said Sir
William, gulping down what was sticking
in his throat.

Don't," she implored, "don't you curse me; you are like - like a friend I had once. Never mind who it was. I saw the likeness the first day we met, and took a fancy for you, and did my best to

there serve you.

"I cannot help it," he protested, but in the middle of the rudeness he pushed a footstool under her feet, and caught up a cushion to place at her back. Remembering former services of the same kind, ren. dered under different circumstances and highly valued then, the wicked old face twitched and softened a little, though it relapsed the next moment into its malice and hardness.

"You don't mean to say you let her go like that?" he persisted, still standing like an avenging giant before a hard-hearted witch. "You never asked her where she was to turn to? You are not acquainted with any friend she might seek?"

I don't deserve this treatment from you, Thwaite, but I am ready to give you satisfaction- - all the satisfaction I can. That goose of a girl you think so much of, though she don't care a straw for you, and she ain't worth your trouble well, let that be- she never told me where she was going, and I am not bound to know; but she is no more fit to carry out a plot than that Spanish ass, Don Quixote. She behaved like a simpleton, as you may be sure. Her baggage was addressed to the care of a sister of a canting, mischief-making governess the child once had, and her ticket was taken to London. She had money for hef board for three months. I can give you the address if you care to have it, though I don't see what good it will do you now. Sir William, will you go and leave me alone in peace, and don't come back to haunt me in another person's guise on my dying bed?"

66

"No, I want to do something better than that," he said, half with lingering fury, half in gruff relenting, and conces sion to their old friendly relations. "You say you took a fancy for me, and meant well by me. I am willing to believe you, though it was a fancy which played me strange tricks, and went far to my undoing. I was not ungrateful, whatever you may think. I take it you have not so many true friends to call your own at the close of your long life, that you should shake off this one, and she your granddaughter, as good as gold, or even a rough, "It is a shameful lie!" he said, speak-little-worth fellow like me. Why in the ing his mind without the slightest reservation, while his fresh-colored face darkened to a dusky red, and the veins on his forehead, within the curves of chestnut hair, stood out knotted like whipcord.

"No," she had the coarseness and cruelty to answer him, "it is not always advisable to ask too many questions. We women are not often without friends at Iris's age, and we don't always care to publish the road we mean to follow."

66

By

name of goodness should you not go after Miss Compton, find her, and be a loving grandmother to her, as I am sure she would be a loving child to you, if you would let her?"

her cautious admission, he forced himself to protest, "I'll stand no end indebted to you if you do this kindness to yourself and Miss Compton at my bidding. But what you mean to do you ought to set about quickly."

"Because it ain't in me, Thwaite," replied her ladyship with returning coolness and candor. "You must be a bad reader of character, if you cannot decipher that. 'Loving grandmother,' indeed! Bah! I leave that to your tame old body who has kissed her faithless tyrant's feet, and run "You are in a great hurry, Thwaite," after her prodigal sons and fast daughters, observed Lady Fermor sarcastically. "I until in the evening of her days she is suppose you see that I have my bonnet content to sit chirping and snivelling over on my head, and you think I shall be her mischievous brats of grandchildren." ready to stir my old bones, and rise and He was not to be diverted from his run after a flighty fool of twenty or thereaim. abouts. Much obliged for your consider. "You say Miss Compton has the pay-ation for my age and infirmities. You ment of her board, among people you dis-had better order the carriage back at approve of, for a month or two. What is once, and ride on before, and get a ticket she to do then? Will you let her feel for London, and let me start napless and herself forsaken by man? — not by God. dinnerless. I should arrive dizzy and You cannot touch her there." He broke starving before midnight. I dare say I off in a low tone with a mixture of rever- might knock about for a bed; or if I found ence and tenderness the true, chival- my way to Fitzroy Square, perhaps my rous devotion, very different from any good granddaughter would have the comspecies of love poor Lady Fermor had mon humanity to lend me hers for what ever given or taken, shining in his blue remained of the night." eyes. "You do not intend Lord Fermor's granddaughter to beg her board from strangers, or to hire herself out for a wage, do you? though she might count it no dishonor to make service honorable by discharging it."

"She has chosen her course, and she must abide by it—ay, and eat the fruit of her folly," argued the old woman, before she changed her ́cue, and suddenly made a concession. "If I do anything more for Iris Compton, it will be as a favor to you, Thwaite. The hussy or the angel, if you prefer it, shall owe my forgiveness to you. That will be something for her pride to swallow, though I fear you have lost the spirit to cast it in her teeth."

Powerful as Sir William's championship had been, this was not exactly true. It was a fact that Lady Fermor, like most women of strong passions, had possessed little natural affection. The passions had burnt themselves out, and in their ashes there were few elements for the growth of the domestic charities. Still there were bounds to her callousness and vindictiveness. Lady Fermor had driven this girl, as Sir William had put it, from the dignity and ease of Lambford, to beg her bread or to hire herself out for a wage. In the end the old woman might not be unwilling, for more reasons than one, to yield to his advocacy, giving it all the credit in order to save her own consistency; while underneath the veil she appeased her grisly ghost of a conscience.

"Thanks," he said shortly; and then fearing to displease her and turn her from

"You are talking nonsense," he said bluntly, staring at her, "but you will go up to London and seek out Miss Comp. ton - won't you?"

"I may if you will be my escort. I have never been accustomed to travel without a squire,” she said with a kind of ghastly coquetry. "When I was younger, a good deal younger, I used to have halfa-dozen sparks and beaux at my disposal. As it is, I am not so strong and nimble as Iris Compton. By-the-by, I'm not at all sure that she will give in, and consent to put herself under my wing again. Disobedience is a virulent as well as a common complaint nowadays. I shall need all the foreign support I can get. Yours may not be very available in this case, but it is better than none. To be sure, my young lady may have eaten her leek and changed her mind, while another person has had time and reason enough to alter his opinion. I shan't blame him, though I am reduced to wonder whether he has attacked me out of a spirit of contradiction and devilry, or from mere mawkish magnanimity, pity, and suchlike stuff."

She looked at him sharply. He returned her glance coldly, and dismissed her wonder with a formal, "Good afternoon, Lady Fermor. I shall see you to London if you like, at whatever time you fix," as he left her.

That night Bill Rogers was considerably impressed by finding himself put in authority at Whitehills, while his master held himself in readiness to start any day for London.

Of course Mrs. Haigh would take Iris in. What mistress of a boarding estab-ing in mysterious whispers to chosen lishment, unless she were a very excep. tional person, would refuse to receive a peer's granddaughter, looking as Iris looked, wearing the dress she wore, even if there had not been the old family connection of which Mrs. Haigh had boasted for the last fifteen years?

tered most sedulously; it was the gentle- chest, and was, therefore, as a clergyman men's evening rubber that she guarded from interruption most carefully.