my pipe, and you
three women began talking. I didn't tell you to. Well, what's his
lordship's care?"

"Just mind your own business, and his lordship will mind his," she
retorted. "You'll get interfered with in a way you won't like, Pike, one
of these days, unless you mend your manners."

"A great care on him," nodded Pike to himself, looking after her, as she
walked off in her anger. "A great care! _I_ know. One of these fine days,
my lord, I may be asking you questions about it on my own score. I might
long before this, but for--"

The sentence broke off abruptly, and ended with a growl at things in
general. Mr. Pike was evidently not in a genial mood.

Mirrable reached home to find the countess-dowager in a state more easily
imagined than described. Some sprite, favourable to the peace of
Hartledon, had been writing confidentially from Ireland regarding Kirton
and his doings. That her eldest son was about to steal a march on her and
marry again seemed almost indisputably clear; and the miserable dowager,
dancing her war-dance and uttering reproaches, was repacking her boxes in
haste. Those boxes, which she had fondly hoped would never again leave
Hartledon, unless it might be for sojourns in Park Lane! She was going
back to Ireland to mount guard, and prevent any such escapade. Only in
September had she quitted him--and then had been as nearly ejected as a
son could eject his mother with any decency--and had taken the Isle of
Wight on her way to Hartledon. The son who lived in the Isle of Wight
had espoused a widow twice his own age, with eleven hundred a year, and a
house and carriage; so that he had a home: which the countess-dowager
sometimes remembered.

Lord Hartledon was liberal. He gave her a handsome sum for her journey,
and a cheque besides; most devoutly praying that she might keep guard
over Kirton for ever. He escorted her to the station himself in a closed
carriage, an omnibus having gone before them with a mountain of boxes,
at which all Calne came out to stare.

And the same week, confiding his children to the joint care of Mirrable
and their nurse--an efficient, kind, and judicious woman--Lord Hartledon
departed from home and England for a sojourn on the Continent, long or
short, as inclination might lead him, feeling as a bird released from
its cage.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

COMING HOME.

Some eighteen months after the event recorded in the last chapter, a
travelling carriage dashed up t