lse none at all. Which is it with him?"

"He makes something."

"As much as you could put in your eye and see none the worse." To
see the old lady, as she made this suggestion, turn sharp round upon
Lucy, was as good as a play. "My sister's nephew, the dean's son, is
one of the best of the rising ones, I'm told." Lucy blushed up to
her hair, but the dowager's back was turned, and she did not see the
blushes. "But he's in Parliament, and they tell me he spends his
money faster than he makes it. I suppose you know him?"

"Yes;--I knew him at Bobsborough."

"It's my belief that after all this fuss about Lord Fawn, he'll marry
his cousin, Lizzie Eustace. If he's a lawyer, and as sharp as they
say, I suppose he could manage her. I wish he would."

"And she so bad as you say she is!"

"She'll be sure to get somebody, and why shouldn't he have her money
as well as another? There never was a Greystock who didn't want
money. That's what it will come to;--you'll see."

"Never," said Lucy decidedly.

"And why not?"

"What I mean is that Mr. Greystock is,--at least, I should think
so from what I hear,--the very last man in the world to marry for
money."

"What do you know of what a man would do?"

"It would be a very mean thing;--particularly if he does not love
her."

"Bother!" said the countess. "They were very near it in town last
year before Lord Fawn came up at all. I knew as much as that. And
it's what they'll come to before they've done."

"They'll never come to it," said Lucy.

Then a sudden light flashed across the astute mind of the countess.
She turned round in her chair, and sat for awhile silent, looking at
Lucy. Then she slowly asked another question. "He isn't your young
man;--is he?" To this Lucy made no reply. "So that's it, is it?" said
the dowager. "You've done me the honour of making my house your home
till my own sister's nephew shall be ready to marry you?"

"And why not?" said Lucy, rather roughly.

"And dame Greystock, from Bobsborough, has sent you here to keep you
out of her son's way. I see it all. And that old frump at Richmond
has passed you over to me because she did not choose to have such
goings on under her own eye."

"There have been no goings on," said Lucy.

"And he's to come here, I suppose, when my back's turned?"

"He is not thinking of coming here. I don't know what you mean.
Nobody has done anything wrong to you. I don't know why you say such
cruel things."

"He c