matter! He has down beside her
again. Oh, he is limed, he is limed!' my lady continued, as she searched
for her spying-glass, that she might miss no wit of the love-making.

The tutor was all complacence. 'It proves that your ladyship's
stratagem,' he said, 'was to the point last night.'

'Oh, Dunborough will live to thank me for that!' she answered.
'Gadzooks, he will! It is first come first served with these madams.
This will open his eyes if anything will.'

'Still--it is to be hoped she will leave before he returns,' Mr.
Thomasson said, with a slight shiver of anticipation. He knew Mr.
Dunborough's temper.

'Maybe,' my lady answered. 'But even if she does not--' There she broke
of, and stood peering through the window. And suddenly, 'Lord's sake!'
she shrieked, 'what is this?'

The fury of her tone, no less than the expletive--which we have ventured
to soften--startled Mr. Thomasson to his feet. Approaching the window in
trepidation--for her ladyship's wrath was impartial, and as often
alighted on the wrong head as the right--the tutor saw that she had
dropped her quizzing-glass, and was striving with shaking hands--but
without averting her eyes from the scene outside--to recover and
readjust it. Curious as well as alarmed, he drew up to her, and, looking
over her shoulder, discerned the seat and Julia; and, alas! seated on
the bench beside Julia, not Sir George Soane, as my lady's indifferent
sight, prompted by her wishes, had persuaded her, but Mr. Dunborough!

The tutor gasped. 'Oh, dear!' he said, looking round, as if for a way of
retreat. 'This is--this is most unfortunate.'

My lady in her wrath did not heed him. Shaking her fist at her
unconscious son, 'You rascal!' she cried. 'You paltry, impudent fellow!
You would do it before my eyes, would you? Oh, I would like to have the
brooming of you! And that minx! Go down you,' she continued, turning
fiercely on the trembling, wretched Thomasson--'go down this instant,
sir, and--and interrupt them! Don't stand gaping there, but down to
them, booby, without the loss of a moment! And bring him up before the
word is said. Bring him up, do you hear?'

'Bring him up?' said Mr. Thomasson, his breath coming quickly. 'I?'

'Yes, you! Who else?'

'I--I--but, my dear lady, he is--he can be very violent,' the unhappy
tutor faltered, his teeth chattering, and his cheek flabby with fright.
'I have known him--and perhaps it would be better, considering my sacred
offi