nk it possible that we should
come."

"Pray do, pray do, pray do," he said, as he took her hand when the
door at No. 17 was opened. As he walked down the street he saw the
figure still standing at the parlour window of No. 10.

On the same evening Clara Demijohn was closeted with Mrs. Duffer at
her lodgings at No. 15. "Standing in the street, squeezing her hand!"
said Mrs. Duffer, as though the very hairs of her head were made to
stand on end by the tidings,--the moral hairs, that is, of her moral
head. Her head, in the flesh, was ornamented by a front which must
have prevented the actual standing on end of any hair that was left
to her.

"I saw it! They came out together from No. 11 as loving as could be,
and he walked up with her to their own house. Then he seized her hand
and held it,--oh, for minutes!--in the street. There is nothing those
Quaker girls won't allow themselves. They are so free with their
Christian names, that, of course, they get into intimacies instantly.
I never allow a young man to call me Clara without leave asked and
given."

"I should think not."

"One can't be too particular about one's Christian name. They've been
in there together, at No. 11, for two hours. What can that mean? Old
Mrs. Vincent was there, but she went away."

"I suppose she didn't like such doings."

"What can a lord be doing in such a place as that," asked Clara,
"--coming so often, you know? And one that has to be a Markiss, which
is much more than a lord. One thing is quite certain. It can't mean
that he is going to marry Marion Fay?" With this assurance Clara
Demijohn comforted herself as best she might.

CHAPTER XVIII.

HOW THEY LIVED AT TRAFFORD PARK.

There certainly was no justification for the ill-humour which Lady
Kingsbury displayed to her husband because Hampstead and his sister
had been invited down to Castle Hautboy. The Hautboy people were her
own relations,--not her husband's. If Lady Persiflage had taken upon
herself to think better of all the evil things done by the children
of the first Marchioness, that was not the fault of the Marquis! But
to her thinking this visit had been made in direct opposition to
her wishes and her interests. Had it been possible she would have
sent the naughty young lord and the naughty young lady altogether
to Coventry,--as far as all aristocratic associations were concerned.
This encouragement of them at Castle Hautboy was in direct
contravention of her id