il, perhaps, but a very dignified fossil. She has grown old in
a rustic seclusion, and knows less of _our_ world than a mother abbess;
but she has read immensely, and is wonderfully clever. I am bound to
tell you that she has very lofty ideas about her granddaughter; and I
believe she will only be reconciled to Lesbia's marriage with a commoner
by the notion that you are sure of a peerage. I ventured to hint as much
in my letter to Lady Maulevrier yesterday.'

A shade of sullenness crept over Horace Smithson's visage.

'I should hope that such settlements as I am in a position to make will
convince Lady Maulevrier that I am a respectable suitor for her
granddaughter, ex peerage,' he said, somewhat haughtily.

'My dear Smithson, did I not tell you that poor Lady Maulevrier is a
century behind the times,' exclaimed Lady Kirkbank, with an aggrieved
look. 'If she were one of _us_, of course she would know that wealth is
the paramount consideration, and that you are quite the best match of
the season. But she is dreadfully _arrieree_, poor dear thing; and she
must have amused herself with the day-dream of seeing Lesbia a duchess,
or something of that kind. I shall tell her that Lesbia can be one of
the queens of society without having strawberry leaves on her coach
panels, and that my dear friend Horace Smithson is a much better match
than a seedy duke. So don't look cross, my dear fellow; in me you have a
friend who will never desert you.'

'Thanks,' said Smithson, inwardly resolving that, so soon as this
little transaction of his marriage were over, he would see as little of
Georgie Kirkbank and her cotton frocks and schoolgirl hats as bare
civility would allow.

He had promised her that she should be the richer by a neat little
bundle of fat and flourishing railway stock when his happiness was
secured, and he was not going to break his promise. But he did not mean
to give George and Georgie free quarters at Rood Hall, or at Cowes, or
Deauville; and he meant to withdraw his wife altogether from Lady
Kirkbank's pinchbeck set.

What were Lesbia's feelings in the early morning after the last day of
the regatta, as she slowly paced the lavender walk in the Ladies'
Garden, alone?--for happily Mr. Smithson was not so early a riser as the
Grasmere-bred damsel, and she had this fresh morning hour to herself. Of
what was she thinking as she paced slowly up and down the broad gravel
walk, between two rows of tall old bushes, o