tretched out a
claw and resumed her work, two red spots on her cheeks.

"Marry her, if you like," she said, with delusive calm. "I sha'n't ever
speak to you again. A scheming minx without a penny!--that ought never
to have been allowed out of the school-room."

Bobbie leaped from his chair.

"Is that the way you mean to take it?"

Lady Niton nodded.

"That is the way I mean to take it!"

"What a fool I was to believe your fine speeches about Oliver!"

"Oliver may go to the devil!" cried Lady Niton.

"Very well!" Bobbie's dignity was tremendous. "Then I don't mean to be
allowed less liberty than Oliver. It's no good continuing this
conversation. Why, I declare! some fool has been meddling with
those books!"

And rapidly crossing the floor, swelling with wrath and determination,
Bobbie opened the bookcase of first editions which stood in this inner
drawing-room and began to replace some volumes, which had strayed from
their proper shelves, with a deliberate hand.

"You resemble Oliver in one thing!" Lady Niton threw after him.

"What may that be?" he said, carelessly.

"You both find gratitude inconvenient!"

Bobbie turned and bowed. "I do!" he said, "inconvenient, and
intolerable! Hullo!--I hear the carriage. I beg you to remark that what
I told you was confidential. It is not to be repeated in company."

Lady Niton had only time to give him a fierce look when the door opened,
and Lady Lucy came wearily in.

Bobbie hastened to meet her.

"My dear Lady Lucy!--what news?"

"Oliver is in!"

"Hurrah!" Bobbie shook her hand vehemently. "I am glad!"

Lady Niton, controlling herself with difficulty, rose from her seat, and
also offered a hand.

"There, you see, Lucy, you needn't have been so anxious."

Lady Lucy sank into a chair.

"What's the majority?" said Bobbie, astonished by her appearance and
manner. "I say, you know, you've been working too hard."

"The majority is twenty-four," said Lady Lucy, coldly, as though she had
rather not have been asked the question; and at the same time, leaning
heavily back in her chair, she began feebly to untie the lace strings of
her bonnet. Bobbie was shocked by her appearance. She had aged rapidly
since he had last seen her, and, in particular, a gray shadow had
overspread the pink-and-white complexion which had so long preserved her
good looks.

On hearing the figures (the majority five years before had been fifteen
hundred), Bobbie could not forbear an