e, you remember my
brother-in-law? Robert, will you get Lady Charlotte some tea?'

'_I_ am not going to be banished,' said Mr. Flaxman, looking down upon
her, his well-bred, slightly worn face aglow with animation and
pleasure.

'Then you will be deafened,' said Rose, laughing, as she escaped from
him a moment, to arrange for a song from a tall formidable maiden, built
after the fashion of Mr. Gilbert's contralto heroines, with a voice
which bore out the ample promise of her frame.

'Your sister is a terribly self-possessed young person, Mr. Elsmere,'
said Lady Charlotte, as Robert piloted her across the room.

'Does that imply praise or blame on your part, Lady Charlotte?' asked
Robert, smiling.

'Neither at present. I don't know Miss Leyburn well enough. I merely
state a fact. No tea, Mr. Elsmere. I have had three teas already, and I
am not like the American woman who could always worry down another cup.'

She was introduced to Mrs. Leyburn; but the plaintive invalid was
immediately seized with terror of her voice and appearance, and was
infinitely grateful to Robert for removing her as promptly as possible
to a chair on the border of the two rooms where she could talk or listen
as she pleased. For a few moments she listened to Frauelein Adelmann's
veiled unmanageable contralto; then she turned magisterially to Robert
standing behind her.

'The art of singing has gone out.' she declared, 'since the Germans have
been allowed to meddle in it. By the way, Mr. Elsmere, how do you manage
to be here? Are you taking a holiday?'

Robert looked at her with a start.

'I have left Murewell, Lady Charlotte.'

'Left Murewell!' she said in astonishment, turning round to look at him,
her eyeglass in her eye. 'Why has Helen told me nothing about it? Have
you got another living?'

'No. My wife and I are settling in London. We only told Lady Helen of
our intentions a few weeks ago.'

To which it may be added that Lady Helen, touched and dismayed by
Elsmere's letter to her, had not been very eager to hand over the woes
of her friends to her aunt's cool and irresponsible comments.

Lady Charlotte deliberately looked at him a minute longer through her
glass. Then she let it fall.

'You don't mean to tell me any more, I can see, Mr. Elsmere. But you
will allow me to be astonished?'

'Certainly,' he said, smiling sadly, and immediately afterwards
relapsing into silence.

'Have you heard of the squire lately?' he asked h