ld be done.
"You know I wouldn't have my girl's name brought up for all the
world;--though why the horrid wretch should have named her I cannot
even guess." The horrid wretch had not, in truth, named any special
her, though it suited Lady Eardham to presume that allusion had been
made to that hope of the flock, that crowning glory of the Eardham
family, that most graceful of the Graces, that Venus certain to
be chosen by any Paris, her second daughter, Gus. She went on to
explain that were she to tell the story to her son Marmaduke, her
son Marmaduke would probably kill the breeches-maker. As Marmaduke
Eardham was, of all young men about town, perhaps the most careless,
the most indifferent, and the least ferocious, his mother was
probably mistaken in her estimate of his resentful feelings. "As for
Sir George, he would be for taking the law of the wretch for libel,
and then we should be--! I don't know where we should be then; but my
dear girl would die."

Of course there was nothing done. During the whole interview Lady
Eardham continued to press Neefit's letter under her hand upon the
table, as though it was of all documents the most precious. She
handled it as though to tear it would be as bad as to tear an
original document bearing the king's signature. Before the interview
was over she had locked it up in her desk, as though there were
something in it by which the whole Eardham race might be blessed or
banned. And, though she spoke no such word, she certainly gave Ralph
to understand that by this letter he, Ralph Newton, was in some
mysterious manner so connected with the secrets, and the interests,
and the sanctity of the Eardham family, that, whether such connection
might be for weal or woe, the Newtons and the Eardhams could never
altogether free themselves from the link. "Perhaps you had better
come and dine with us in a family way to-morrow," said Lady Eardham,
giving her invitation as though it must necessarily be tendered, and
almost necessarily accepted. Ralph, not thanking her, but taking it
in the same spirit, said that he would be there at half past seven.
"Just ourselves," said Lady Eardham, in a melancholy tone, as though
they two were doomed to eat family dinners together for ever after.

"I suppose the property is really his own?" said Lady Eardham to her
husband that afternoon.

Sir George was a stout, plethoric gentleman, with a short temper and
many troubles. Marmaduke was expensive, and Sir G