it."

"That you will, sir,--for a time, indeed, I was half disposed to
stipulate that the title should be conferred upon yourself. It would
have thus acquired another generation in date, but I remembered how
indisposed you might feel to all the worry and care the mere forms of
assuming it might cost you. You would not like to leave this old spot,
besides--"

"No, on no account," said the old man, pensively.

"And then I thought that your great pride, after all, would be to hear
of me, your own Davy, as Lord Castle-dunn."

"I thought it would be plain Dunn,--Lord Dunn," said the old man,
quickly.

"If the name admitted of it, I 'd have preferred it so."

"And what is there against the name?" asked he angrily.

"Nothing, father; none have ever presumed to say a word against it. In
talking the matter over, however, with some members of the Cabinet, one
or two suggested Dunnscourt, but the majority inclined to Castledunn."

"And what did your Lordship say?" asked the old man, with a gleeful
cackle. "Oh, Davy! I never thought the day would come that I 'd call you
by any name I 'd love so well as that you bore when a child; but see,
now, it makes my old eyes run over to speak to you as 'my Lord.'"

"It is a fair and honest pride, father," said Dunn, caressingly. "We
stormed the breach ourselves, with none to help, none to cheer us on."

"Oh, Davy, but it does me good to call you 'my Lord.'"

"Well, sir, you are only anticipating a week or two. Parliament will
assemble after the elections, and then be prorogued; immediately
afterwards there will be four elevations to the peerage,--mine one of
them."

"Yes, my Lord," mumbled the old man, submissively.

"But this is not all, father; the same week that sees me gazetted a peer
will announce my marriage with an Earl's daughter."

"Davy, Davy, this luck is coming too quick! Take care, my son, that
there's no pit before you."

"I know what I am doing, sir, and so does the Lady Augusta Arden. You
remember the Earl of Glengariffs name?"

"Where you were once a tutor, is it?"

"The same, sir."

"It was they that used to be so cruel to you, Davy, wasn't it?"

"I was a foolish boy, ignorant of the world and its ways at the time. I
fancied fifty things to mean offence which never were intended to wound
me."

"Ay, they made you eat in the servants' hall, I think."

"Never, sir,--never; they placed me at a side table once or twice when
pressed for room."

"Well,