is my grandchild. She and I have got into different
walks of life now, so that I don't see much of her. They tell me that
she does her duty well in that sphere of life to which it has pleased
God to call her."

"That depends," thought Crosbie, "on what the duties of a viscountess
may be supposed to be." But he wished his new friend good-bye,
without saying anything further as to Lady Dumbello, and, at about
six o'clock in the evening, had himself driven up under the portico
of Courcy Castle.

CHAPTER XVII

Courcy Castle

Courcy Castle was very full. In the first place, there was a great
gathering there of all the Courcy family. The earl was there,--and
the countess, of course. At this period of the year Lady de Courcy
was always at home; but the presence of the earl himself had
heretofore been by no means so certain. He was a man who had been
much given to royal visitings and attendances, to parties in the
Highlands, to,--no doubt necessary,--prolongations of the London
season, to sojournings at certain German watering-places, convenient,
probably, in order that he might study the ways and ceremonies of
German Courts,--and to various other absences from home, occasioned
by a close pursuit of his own special aims in life; for the Earl
de Courcy had been a great courtier. But of late gout, lumbago,
and perhaps also some diminution in his powers of making himself
generally agreeable, had reconciled him to domestic duties, and the
earl spent much of his time at home. The countess, in former days,
had been heard to complain of her lord's frequent absence. But it is
hard to please some women,--and now she would not always be satisfied
with his presence.

And all the sons and daughters were there,--excepting Lord Porlock,
the eldest, who never met his father. The earl and Lord Porlock were
not on terms, and indeed hated each other as only such fathers and
such sons can hate. The Honourable George de Courcy was there with
his bride, he having lately performed a manifest duty, in having
married a young woman with money. Very young she was not,--having
reached some years of her life in advance of thirty; but then,
neither was the Honourable George very young; and in this respect
the two were not ill-sorted. The lady's money had not been very
much,--perhaps thirty thousand pounds or so. But then the Honourable
George's money had been absolutely none. Now he had an income on
which he could live, and therefore his fa