's observation to
him a long while ago, and therefore brought the matter before him. It
would be an excellent home for the little girl--of that he was
positive--if she had not already found such a home.

'But it is absurd of the man to write so long after!' said Lady
Mottisfont, with a lumpiness about the back of her throat as she thought
how much Dorothy had become to her. 'I suppose it was when you
first--found her--that you told him this?'

'Exactly--it was then.'

He fell into thought, and neither Sir Ashley nor Lady Mottisfont took the
trouble to answer the lawyer's letter; and so the matter ended for the
time.

One day at dinner, on their return from a short absence in town, whither
they had gone to see what the world was doing, hear what it was saying,
and to make themselves generally fashionable after rusticating for so
long--on this occasion, I say, they learnt from some friend who had
joined them at dinner that Fernell Hall--the manorial house of the estate
next their own, which had been offered on lease by reason of the
impecuniosity of its owner--had been taken for a term by a widow lady, an
Italian Contessa, whose name I will not mention for certain reasons which
may by and by appear. Lady Mottisfont expressed her surprise and
interest at the probability of having such a neighbour. 'Though, if I
had been born in Italy, I think I should have liked to remain there,' she
said.

'She is not Italian, though her husband was,' said Sir Ashley.

'Oh, you have heard about her before now?'

'Yes; they were talking of her at Grey's the other evening. She is
English.' And then, as her husband said no more about the lady, the
friend who was dining with them told Lady Mottisfont that the Countess's
father had speculated largely in East-India Stock, in which immense
fortunes were being made at that time; through this his daughter had
found herself enormously wealthy at his death, which had occurred only a
few weeks after the death of her husband. It was supposed that the
marriage of an enterprising English speculator's daughter to a poor
foreign nobleman had been matter of arrangement merely. As soon as the
Countess's widowhood was a little further advanced she would, no doubt,
be the mark of all the schemers who came near her, for she was still
quite young. But at present she seemed to desire quiet, and avoided
society and town.

Some weeks after this time Sir Ashley Mottisfont sat looking fixedly at