iage was set aside.
What was the consequence? Two years after the girl married the butler,
and they bought the Atherton Arms. The marquis, in his twenty-fifth
year, married a peeress in her own right, and was now one of the first
men in England. My lady often repeated that anecdote; it had made a
great impression on her, and it certainly produced an effect on Lord
Chandos.

My lady had certainly other influences to bring to bear. The uncle of
Lady Erskine, the Duke of Lester, was one of the most powerful nobles in
England--the head of the Cabinet, the most influential peer in the House
of Lords, the grandest orator and the most respected of men. My lady
enjoyed talking about him--she brought forward his name continually, and
was often heard to say that whoever had the good fortune to marry Lady
Erskine was almost sure to succeed the duke in his numerous honors. Lord
Chandos, hearing her one day, said:

"I will win honors, mother--win them for myself--and that will be better
than succeeding another man."

She looked at him with a half-sad, half-mocking smile.

"I have no ambition, no hope for you, Lance. You have taken your wife
from a dairy--the most I can hope is that you may learn to be a good
judge of milk."

He turned from her with a hot flush of anger on his face. Yet the sharp,
satirical shaft found its way to his heart. He thought of the words and
brooded over them--they made more impression on him than any others had
done. In his mother's mind he had evidently lost his place in the
world's race, never to regain it.

The duke--who knew nothing of the conspiracy, and knew nothing of the
young lord's story, except that he had involved himself in some tiresome
dilemma from which his parents had rescued him--the Duke of Lester, who
heard Lord Chandos spoken of as one likely to marry his niece, took a
great fancy to him; he had no children of his own; he was warmly
attached to his beautiful niece; it seemed very probable that if Lord
Chandos married Lady Erskine, he would have before him one of the most
brilliant futures that could fall to any man's lot. Many people hinted
at it, and constant dropping wears away a stone.

The last and perhaps the greatest hold that the countess had over her
son was the evident liking of Lady Marion for him. In this, as in
everything else, she was most diplomatic; she never expressed any wish
that he should marry her; but she had a most sympathetic manner of
speaking about her