head.

'No,' thought Louis, 'nor does Isabel's mutton!'

CHAPTER XIII.

THE CONWAY HOUSEHOLD.

And ye shall walk in silk attire,
And siller hae to spare,
Gin ye'll consent to be his bride,
Nor think of Donald mair.
Miss BLAMIRE.

What makes you so lame to-day?' asked Lord Ormersfield, as Louis
crossed the library, on returning from an interview to which he had
been summoned in another room.

'I only stumbled over an obstruction on the Frost staircase yesterday,'
said Louis. 'Poor Jem chose to have me up to the nursery; and to see
him in the paternal character is the funniest as well as the
pleasantest spectacle the house affords.'

'Ah! it is not what it was,' said the Earl. 'I suppose I must call
there before the holidays, though,' he added, reluctantly. 'But what
did that man, Ramsbotham, want with you?'

'To ask our interest for that appointment for his friend Grant.'

'Indeed! what could bring him here?'

'Why, unluckily, he fancied he had some claim on me, on the score of
Jem Frost's election. I was too innocent then to know what those
things go for.'

'You may say so!' ejaculated the Earl. 'So he was insolent enough to
bring that up, was he?'

'Worse,' said Fitzjocelyn; 'he wanted to threaten that, unless I would
oblige him now, there were matters which it was his duty to lay before
the trustees. I told him he would do, of course, whatever was his
duty; whereupon he thought my Lordship was interested in Mr. Frost.'

'Intolerably impertinent! I hope you set him down!'

'I told him that neither Mr. Frost nor I should wish him to pretermit
his duty on any consideration whatever. Then he harked back to what he
did for us at the election; and I was forced to tell him that if he
considered that he had thereby established a claim on me, I must own
myself in his debt; but as to reciprocating it, by putting in a person
like Grant, that was against my conscience. He flew into a passion,
informed me that Mr. Frost would take the consequences, mounted the
British Lion, and I bowed him out upon that majestic quadruped, talking
grandly of illiberal prejudices and the rising generation.'

'You acknowledged that he had a claim on you?'

'As things go in this world, I suppose it is true.'

'Louis! you will never know how to deal with those people.'

'I am afraid not. I could not, either boldly or diplomatically, get
rid of the charge; so there was nothing for