the hall.

"He would not let me."

"But why not go yourself? or why not have written to me,--considering
how intimate we are!" Mrs. Robarts could not explain to him that the
peculiar intimacy between him and Lucy must have hindered her from
doing so, even if otherwise it might have been possible; but she felt
such was the case.

"Well, my men, this is bad work you're doing here," said he, walking
into the drawing-room. Whereupon the cook curtsied low, and the
bailiffs, knowing his lordship, stopped from their business and
put their hands to their foreheads. "You must stop this, if you
please,--at once. Come, let's go out into the kitchen, or some place
outside. I don't like to see you here with your big boots and the pen
and ink among the furniture."

"We ain't a-done no harm, my lord, so please your lordship," said
Jemima cook.

"And we is only a-doing our bounden dooties," said one of the
bailiffs.

"As we is sworn to do, so please your lordship," said the other.

"And is wery sorry to be unconwenient, my lord, to any gen'leman or
lady as is a gen'leman or lady. But accidents will happen, and then
what can the likes of us do?" said the first.

"Because we is sworn, my lord," said the second. But, nevertheless,
in spite of their oaths, and in spite also of the stern necessity
which they pleaded, they ceased their operations at the instance of
the peer. For the name of a lord is still great in England.

"And now leave this, and let Mrs. Robarts go into her drawing-room."

"And, please your lordship, what is we to do? Who is we to look
to?" In satisfying them absolutely on this point Lord Lufton had
to use more than his influence as a peer. It was necessary that he
should have pen and paper. But with pen and paper he did satisfy
them;--satisfy them so far that they agreed to return to Stubbs's
room, the former hospital, due stipulation having been made for the
meals and beer, and there await the order to evacuate the premises
which would no doubt, under his lordship's influence, reach them on
the following day. The meaning of all which was that Lord Lufton
had undertaken to bear upon his own shoulder the whole debt due by
Mr. Robarts. And then he returned to the book-room where Mark was
still standing almost on the spot in which he had placed himself
immediately after breakfast. Mrs. Robarts did not return, but went up
among the children to counter-order such directions as she had given
for the preparation