Mrs.
Attenbury."

"I remember Mrs. Attenbury."

"Of course you do. Who does not? Adelaide was a child then, I
suppose. Though I don't know why she should have been, as she calls
herself one-and-twenty now. You'll think her pretty. I don't. But
she is my great new friend, and I like her immensely. She rides to
hounds, and talks Italian, and writes for the _Times_."

"Writes for the _Times_!"

"I won't swear that she does, but she could. There's only one other
thing about her. She's engaged to be married."

"To whom?"

"I don't know that I shall answer that question, and indeed I'm not
sure that she is engaged. But there's a man dying for her."

"You must know, if she's your friend."

"Of course I know; but there are ever so many ins and outs, and I
ought not to have said a word about it. I shouldn't have done so to
any one but you. And now we'll go in and have some tea, and go to
bed."

"Go to bed!"

"We always go to bed here before dinner on hunting days. When the
cubbing began Oswald used to be up at three."

"He doesn't get up at three now."

"Nevertheless we go to bed. You needn't if you don't like, and I'll
stay with you if you choose till you dress for dinner. I did know
so well that you'd come back to London, Mr. Finn. You are not a bit
altered."

"I feel to be changed in everything."

"Why should you be altered? It's only two years. I am altered because
of Baby. That does change a woman. Of course I'm thinking always of
what he will do in the world; whether he'll be a master of hounds
or a Cabinet Minister or a great farmer;--or perhaps a miserable
spendthrift, who will let everything that his grandfathers and
grandmothers have done for him go to the dogs."

"Why do you think of anything so wretched, Lady Chiltern?"

"Who can help thinking? Men do do so. It seems to me that that is the
line of most young men who come to their property early. Why should I
dare to think that my boy should be better than others? But I do; and
I fancy that he will be a great statesman. After all, Mr. Finn, that
is the best thing that a man can be, unless it is given him to be a
saint and a martyr and all that kind of thing,--which is not just
what a mother looks for."

"That would only be better than the spendthrift and gambler."

"Hardly better you'll say, perhaps. How odd that is! We all profess
to believe when we're told that this world should be used merely as
a preparation for the next; and yet there is