ut the Serjeant so far frightened her that she was
induced to promise that Mrs. Bluestone should see Lady Anna on the
following morning,--stipulating, however, that Mrs. Bluestone should
see herself before she went up-stairs.

On the following morning Mr. Goffe came early. But Mr. Goffe
could give his client very little comfort. He was, however, less
uncomfortable than the Serjeant had been. He was of opinion that
Lady Anna certainly ought to go abroad, in obedience to her mother's
instructions, and was willing to go to her and tell her so, with what
solemnity of legal authority he might be able to assume; but he could
not say that anything could be done absolutely to enforce obedience.
Mr. Goffe suggested that perhaps a few gentle words might be
successful. "Gentle words!" said the Countess, who had become quite
unable to restrain herself. "The harshest words are only too gentle
for her. If I had known what she was, Mr. Goffe, I would never have
stirred in this business. They might have called me what they would,
and it would have been better." When Mr. Goffe came downstairs
he had not a word to say more as to the efficacy of gentleness.
He simply remarked that he did not think the young lady could be
induced to go, and suggested that everybody had better wait till the
Solicitor-General returned to town.

Then Mrs. Bluestone came, almost on the heels of the attorney;--poor
Mrs. Bluestone, who now felt that it was a dreadful grievance both
to her and to her husband that they had had anything to do with the
Lovel family! She was very formal in her manner,--and, to tell the
truth for her, rather frightened. The Serjeant had asked her to call
and see Lady Anna Lovel. Might she be permitted to do so? Then the
Countess burst forth with a long story of all her wrongs,--with the
history of her whole life. Not beginning with her marriage,--but
working back to it from the intense misery, and equally intense
ambition of the present hour. She told it all; how everybody had been
against her,--how she had been all alone at the dreary Grange in
Westmoreland,--how she had been betrayed by her husband, and turned
out to poverty and scorn;--how she had borne it all for the sake of
the one child who was, by God's laws and man's, the heiress to her
father's name; how she had persevered,--intermingling it all with a
certain worship of high honours and hereditary position with which
Mrs. Bluestone was able in some degree to sympathise. Sh