turned to her father's
roof. The winter had certainly not been a happy time for her. Early
in the autumn she had been taken off to the German castle in great
disgrace because of her plebeian lover, and had, ever since, been
living under so dark a cloud, as to have been considered unfit for
the companionship of those little darlings, the young lords, her
half-brothers. She had had her way no doubt, never having for a
moment wavered in her constancy to the Post Office clerk; but she
had been assured incessantly by all her friends that her marriage
with the man was impossible, and had no doubt suffered under the
conviction that her friends were hostile to her. Now she might be
happy. Now she was to be taken back to her father's house. Now she
was to keep her lover, and not be held to have been disgraced at all.
No doubt in this there was great triumph.

But her triumph had been due altogether to an accident;--to what her
father graciously called a romance, while her stepmother described
it less civilly as a "marvellous coincidence, for which she ought to
thank her stars on her bended knees." The accident,--or coincidence
or romance as it might be called,--was, of course, her lover's title.
Of this she was by no means proud, and would not at all thank her
stars for it on her bended knees. Though she was happy in her lover's
presence, her happiness was clouded by the feeling that she was
imposing upon her father. She had been allowed to ask her lover to
dine at Kingsbury House because her lover was supposed to be the
Duca di Crinola. But the invitation had been sent under an envelope
addressed to George Roden, Esq., General Post Office. No one had
yet ventured to inscribe the Duke's name and title on the back of a
letter. The Marchioness was assured by her sister that it would all
come right, and had, therefore, submitted to have the young man asked
to come and eat his dinner under the same roof with her darlings.
But she did not quite trust her sister, and felt that after all it
might become her imperative duty to gather her children together
in her bosom, and fly with them from contact with the Post Office
clerk,--the Post Office clerk who would not become a Duke. The
Marquis himself was only anxious that everything should be made to be
easy. He had, while at Trafford, been so tormented by Mr. Greenwood
and his wife that he longed for nothing so much as a reconciliation
with his daughter. He was told on very good authorit