laurel; and it is
most soothing. Is n't he a love?"

"Hislop?"

"No, my darling squirrel yonder. The poor dear has been ill these two
days. He bit Sir Marcus Guff, and that horrid creature seems to have
disagreed with the darling, for he has pined ever since. Don't caress
him; he hates men, except Monsignore Alberti, whom, probably, he
mistakes for an old lady. And what becomes of all the Bramleighs--are
they left penniless?"

"By no means. I do not intend to press my claim farther than the right
to the estates. I am not going to proceed for--I forget the legal
word--the accumulated profits. Indeed, if Mr. Bramleigh be only animated
by the spirit I have heard attributed to him, there is no concession
that I am not disposed to make him."

"What droll people Frenchmen are! They dash their morality, like their
cookery, with something discrepant. They fancy it means 'piquancy.'
What, in the name of all romance, have you to do with the Bramleighs?
Why all this magnanimity for people who certainly have been keeping you
out of what was your own, and treating your claim to it as a knavery?"

"You might please to remember that we are related."

"Of course you are nothing of the kind. If _you_ be the true prince, the
others must be all illegitimate a couple of generations back. Perhaps
I am imbittered against them by that cruel fraud practised on myself.
I cannot bring myself to forgive it. Now, if you really were that fine
generous creature you want me to believe, it is of _me_, of me, Lady
Augusta Bramleigh, you would be thinking all this while: how to
secure _me_ that miserable pittance they called my settlement; how to
recompense _me_ for the fatal mistake I made in my marriage; how to
distinguish between the persons who fraudulently took possession of your
property, and the poor harmless victim of their false pretensions."

"And is not this what I am here for? Is it not to lay my whole fortune
at your feet?"

"A very pretty phrase, that does n't mean anything like what it
pretends; a phrase borrowed from a vaudeville, and that ought to be
restored to where it came from."

"Lord and Lady Culduff, my Lady, wish to pay their respects."

"They are passing through," said Lady Augusta, reading the words written
in pencil on the card presented by the servant. "Of course I must see
them. You need n't go away, Count; but I shall not present you. Yes,
Hislop, tell her Ladyship I am at home. I declare, you are always
comp