. Why do you ask?"

"I'm going to hunt. It's a long way to go,--ten or twelve miles
generally; but almost everybody hunts here. Mrs. Carbuncle is coming
again, and she is about the best lady in England after hounds;--so
they tell me. And Lord George is coming again."

"Who is Lord George?"

"You remember Lord George Carruthers, whom we all knew in London?"

"What,--the tall man with the hollow eyes and the big whiskers, whose
life is a mystery to every one? Is he coming?"

"I like him, just because he isn't a ditto to every man one meets.
And Sir Griffin Tewett is coming."

"Who is a ditto to everybody."

"Well;--yes; poor Sir Griffin! The truth is, he is awfully smitten
with Mrs. Carbuncle's niece."

"Don't you go match-making, Lizzie," said Frank. "That Sir Griffin is
a fool, we will all allow; but it's my belief he has wit enough to
make himself pass off as a man of fortune, with very little to back
it. He's at law with his mother, at law with his sisters, and at law
with his younger brother."

"If he were at law with his great-grandmother, it would be nothing to
me, Frank. She has her aunt to take care of her, and Sir Griffin is
coming with Lord George."

"You don't mean to put up all their horses, Lizzie?"

"Well, not all. Lord George and Sir Griffin are to keep theirs at
Troon, or Kilmarnock, or somewhere. The ladies will bring two apiece,
and I shall have two of my own."

"And carriage-horses and hacks?"

"The carriage-horses are here,--of course."

"It will cost you a great deal of money, Lizzie."

"That's just what I tell her," said Miss Macnulty.

"I've been living here, not spending one shilling, for the last two
months," said Lizzie, "and all for the sake of economy; yet people
think that no woman was ever left so rich. Surely I can afford to see
a few friends for one month in the year. If I find I can't afford
so much as that, I shall let the place, and go and live abroad
somewhere. It's too much to suppose that a woman should shut herself
up here for six or eight months and see nobody all the time."

On that, the day of Frank's arrival, not a word was said about the
necklace, nor of Lord Fawn, nor of that mutual pledge which had been
taken and given down among the rocks. Frank, before dinner, went out
about the place, that he might see how things were going on, and
observe whether the widow was being ill-treated and unfairly eaten up
by her dependants. He was, too, a little curious as