t.

"Oh, since he was a little lad, my lady! We all love Mr. Horace here.
He is the handsomest and kindest young gentleman in the world, and
he's that good to me that I couldn't be fonder of my own son, not
forgetting the difference, my lady."

Bettina detected a tone of regretfulness in the woman's voice, and
also, she thought, an effort to conceal it. If there was a feeling
akin to this regret in her own heart, she also must conceal it. These
allusions to the handsome, enthusiastic young fellow to whom she had
promised herself in marriage had stirred her deeply. The idea of any
one, servant or equal, speaking in this way of the man who was her
husband, at any time in his life, gave her a nervous desire to laugh.
It was followed by an equally nervous impulse to cry.

Walking ahead of the housekeeper, she gained a moment's opportunity
for the recovery of her self-control, and she made good use of it.

"Parlett," she said, presently, "I do not want you to think that in
marrying Lord Hurdly I have done an injury to Mr. Spotswood." In
spite of herself, her voice shook at the name.

"Oh no, my lady--" began Parlett, but her mistress interrupted her,
saying, quickly:

"Of course he always knew that his lordship might marry, and could
not have been unprepared for such a possibility; but in order that he
might feel no difference in his present position on that account,
Lord Hurdly has settled on him what is really a handsome fortune--not
only the income of it, but the principal also. I tell you this that
you may understand that he is none the worse off, so far as money
goes, through his cousin's marriage to me."

"Yes, my lady. I understand, my lady. Thank you for telling me," said
Parlett, somewhat nervously. "Of course every one knows that you have
done him no harm, my lady, and we knew, of course, that his lordship
would do the handsome thing by him."

Somehow these civil, reassuring words smote painfully upon Bettina's
consciousness. When this woman spoke so confidently of Lord Hurdly's
doing the handsome thing by his former heir, she felt it to be the
hollow tribute of a conventional loyalty, and the assurance that it
was understood that she herself had done him no harm grated on her
also. Now that she was quite alone and free to think things out, as
she had shrunk from doing heretofore, and as, in the rush of the
London season, she had been able to avoid doing, she felt a sense of
compunction toward Horace that