own staircase, to be
bowed at by any one who chooses to come. That's all done--for one
year, at any rate."

"You know you like it."

"No, Mary; that's just what I don't know. I don't know whether I like
it or not. Sometimes, when the spirit of that dearest of all women,
Mrs. Harold Smith, is upon me, I think that I do like it; but then,
again, when other spirits are on me, I think that I don't."

"And who are the owners of the other spirits?"

"Oh, you are one, of course. But you are a weak little thing, by no
means able to contend with such a Samson as Mrs. Harold. And then you
are a little given to wickedness yourself, you know. You've learned
to like London well enough since you sat down to the table of Dives.
Your uncle--he's the real, impracticable, unapproachable Lazarus who
declares that he can't come down because of the big gulf. I wonder
how he'd behave, if somebody left him ten thousand a year?"

"Uncommonly well, I am sure."

"Oh, yes; he is a Lazarus now, so of course we are bound to speak
well of him; but I should like to see him tried. I don't doubt but
what he'd have a house in Belgrave Square, and become noted for his
little dinners before the first year of his trial was over."

"Well, and why not? You would not wish him to be an anchorite?"

"I am told that he is going to try his luck--not with ten thousand a
year, but with one or two."

"What do you mean?"

"Jane tells me that they all say at Greshamsbury that he is going to
marry Lady Scatcherd." Now Lady Scatcherd was a widow living in those
parts; an excellent woman, but one not formed by nature to grace
society of the highest order.

"What!" exclaimed Mrs. Gresham, rising up from her chair, while her
eyes flashed with anger at such a rumour.

"Well, my dear, don't eat me. I don't say it is so; I only say that
Jane said so."

"Then you ought to send Jane out of the house."

"You may be sure of this, my dear: Jane would not have told me if
somebody had not told her."

"And you believed it?"

"I have said nothing about that."

"But you look as if you had believed it."

"Do I? Let us see what sort of a look it is, this look of faith."
And Miss Dunstable got up and went to the glass over the fireplace.
"But, Mary, my dear, ain't you old enough to know that you should not
credit people's looks? You should believe nothing nowadays; and I did
not believe the story about poor Lady Scatcherd. I know the doctor
well enough to be sure