loud on Jack's horizon will
vanish."

"What if there were no children?"

"There are so much more often than not--that is the least of my worries.
He had five girls by his first wife; there is no reason why this
splendid cow I have picked out should not produce a dozen boys. I never
worked so hard over one of Jack's elections--not only to overcome Zeal's
misogyny, which he calls scruples, but I had to fight Strathland every
inch of the way. When I think of Jack's desperation if he were
pitchforked up into the Peers--you do not know him as I do."

"Well, he is safe for a time, I fancy. There has been consumption in the
family before, and always the slowest sort--"

A footman entered with a yellow envelope on a tray.

Lady Victoria opened it without haste or change of color.

"Jack is returned," she said.

"How jolly," replied the other, with equal indifference.

II

"You look tired--I will take you up to your room. Vicky has so many on
her hands."

The American rose slowly, but with a flash of gratitude in her eyes.

"I am tired, and I don't know a soul here. I almost wish Lady Victoria
had not asked me down, although I have wanted all my life to visit one
of the ancestral homes of England."

"Oh, you'll get over that, and used to us," said Miss Thangue, smiling.
"Your staircase is behind this door, and we can slip out without
attracting attention. They are all gabbling over Jack's election."

She opened a door in a corner of the hall where the newly arrived guests
were gathered about Lady Victoria's tea-table, and led the way up a wide
dark and slippery stair. After the first landing the light was stronger,
and the walls were, to an inch, covered with portraits and landscapes,
the effect almost as careless as if the big open space were a
lumber-room.

"Are they _all_ old masters?" asked Miss Isabel Otis, politely, her eyes
roving over the dark canvases.

"Oh no; the masters are down-stairs. I'll show them to you to-morrow.
These are not bad, though."

"What a lot of ancestors to have!"

"Oh, you'll find them all over the house. These are not Gwynnes. This
house came to Lord Strathland through the female line. It will be Jack's
eventually--one way or another; and Jack must be more like the Eltons
than the Gwynnes--unless, indeed, he is like his American ancestors."
She turned her soft non-committal eyes on the stranger. "You are his
thirty-first cousin, are you not?"

"Not quite so remote.