-as to my family, I mean?"

"He has told me something."

"I was sure he had. I should not have asked unless I had been quite
sure. I know that he would tell you anything of that kind. Well?"

"What am I to say, Lord Hampstead?"

"What has he told you, Mrs. Roden?"

"He has spoken to me of your sister."

"But what has he said?"

"That he loves her."

"And that she loves him?"

"That he hopes so."

"He has said more than that, I take it. They have engaged themselves
to each other."

"So I understand."

"What do you think of it, Mrs. Roden?"

"What can I think of it, Lord Hampstead? I hardly dare to think of it
at all."

"Was it wise?"

"I suppose where love is concerned wisdom is not much considered."

"But people have to consider it. I hardly know how to think of it. To
my idea it was not wise. And yet there is no one living whom I esteem
so much as your son."

"You are very good, my lord."

"There is no goodness in it,--any more than in his liking for me. But
I can indulge my fancy without doing harm to others. Lady Kingsbury
thinks that I am an idiot because I do not live exclusively with
counts and countesses; but in declining to take her advice I do not
injure her much. She can talk about me and my infatuations among her
friends with a smile. She will not be tortured by any feeling of
disgrace. So with my father. He has an idea that I am out-Heroding
Herod, he having been Herod;--but there is nothing bitter in it to
him. Those fine young gentlemen, my brothers, who are the dearest
little chicks in the world, five and six and seven years old, will be
able to laugh pleasantly at their elder brother when they grow up, as
they will do, among the other idle young swells of the nation. That
their brother and George Roden should be always together will not
even vex them. They may probably receive some benefit themselves, may
achieve some diminution of the folly natural to their position, by
their advantage in knowing him. In looking at it all round, as far
as that goes, there is not only satisfaction to me, but a certain
pride. I am doing no more than I have a right to do. Whatever
counter-influence I may introduce among my own people, will be good
and wholesome. Do you understand me, Mrs. Roden?"

"I think so;--very clearly. I should be dull, if I did not."

"But it becomes different when one's sister is concerned. I am
thinking of the happiness of other people."

"She, I suppose, will think o