y. Or better a peasant girl! Middle
courses dilute it to the stuff in a publican's tankard. It 's an
adulterous beast who thinks of mixing old wine with anything.'

'Hulloa!' said the earl; and she drew up.

'You'll have me here till over to-morrow, Rowsley, so that I may have
one clear day at Steignton?'

He bowed. 'You will choose your room. Mr. Weyburn is welcome.'

Weyburn stated the purport of his visit, and was allowed to name an
early day for the end of his term of service.

Entering the house, Lady Charlotte glanced at the armour and stag
branches decorating corners of the hall, and straightway laid her head
forward, pushing after it in the direction of the drawing room. She went
in, stood for a minute, and came out. Her mouth was hard shut.

At dinner she had tales of uxorious men, of men who married mistresses,
of the fearful incubus the vulgar family of a woman of the inferior
classes ever must be; and her animadversions were strong in the matter
of gew-gaw modern furniture. The earl submitted to hear.

She was, however, keenly attentive whenever he proffered any item of
information touching Steignton. After dinner Weyburn strolled to the
points of view she cited as excellent for different aspects of her old
home.

He found her waiting to hear his laudation when he came back; and in the
early morning she was on the terrace, impatient to lead him down to the
lake. There, at the boat-house, she commanded him to loosen a skiff and
give her a paddle. Between exclamations, designed to waken louder
from him, and not so successful as her cormorant hunger for praise of
Steignton required, she plied him to confirm with his opinion an opinion
that her reasoning mind had almost formed in the close neighbourhood of
the beloved and honoured person providing it; for abstract ideas were
unknown to her. She put it, however, as in the abstract:--

'How is it we meet people brave as lions before an enemy, and rank
cowards where there's a botheration among their friends at home? And
tell me, too, if you've thought the thing over, what's the meaning of
this? I 've met men in high places, and they've risen to distinction by
their own efforts, and they head the nation. Right enough, you'd say.
Well, I talk with them, and I find they've left their brains on the
ladder that led them up; they've only the ideas of their grandfather on
general subjects. I come across a common peasant or craftsman, and he
down there has a mind