spend Easter in these parts,
and that he should like greatly to be allowed some day to come over and
make acquaintance with our things. I told him," Lady Grace wound
up, "that nothing would be easier; a note from him arrived before
dinner----"

Lady Sandgate jumped the rest "And it's for him you've come in."

"It's for him I've come in," the girl assented with serenity.

"Very good--though he sounds most detrimental! But will you first just
tell me _this_--whether when you sent in ten minutes ago for Lord John
to come out to you it was wholly of your own movement?" And she followed
it up as her young friend appeared to hesitate. "Was it because you knew
why he had arrived?"

The young friend hesitated still. "'Why '?"

"So particularly to speak to you."

"Since he was expected and mightn't know where I was," Lady Grace said
after an instant, "I wanted naturally to be civil to him."

"And had he time there to tell you," Lady Sand-gate asked, "how very
civil he wants to be to you?"

"No, only to tell me that his friend--who's off there--was coming; for
Kitty at once appropriated him and was still in possession when I came
away." Then, as deciding at last on perfect frankness, Lady Grace went
on: "If you want to know, I sent for news of him because Kitty insisted
on my doing so; saying, so very oddly and quite in her own way, that she
herself didn't wish to 'appear in it.' She had done nothing but say to
me for an hour, rather worryingly, what you've just said--that it's
me he's what, like Mr. Bender, she calls 'after'; but as soon as
he appeared she pounced on him, and I left him--I assure you quite
resignedly--in her hands."

"She wants"--it was easy for Lady Sandgate to remark--"to talk of you to
him."

"I don't know _what_ she wants," the girl replied as with rather a tired
patience; "Kitty wants so many things at once. She always wants money,
in quantities, to begin with--and all to throw so horribly away; so that
whenever I see her 'in' so very deep with any one I always imagine her
appealing for some new tip as to how it's to be come by."

"Kitty's an abyss, I grant you, and with my disinterested devotion to
your father--in requital of all his kindness to me since Lord Sandgate's
death and since your mother's--I can never be too grateful to you, my
dear, for your being so different a creature. But what is she going to
gain financially," Lady Sand-gate pursued with a strong emphasis on
her adverb, "by