No, I ain't better," the husband said, in answer to his
wife's inquiries. "I never shall be better while you keep that cook
in the kitchen."

"But where are we to get another if we send him away?"

"It's not my business to find cooks. I don't know where you're to
get one. It's my belief you won't have a cook at all before long. It
seems you have got two extra men into the house without telling me."

"We must have servants, you know, when there is company. It wouldn't
do to have Lady Dumbello here, and no one to wait on her."

"Who asked Lady Dumbello? I didn't."

"I'm sure, my dear, you liked having her here."

"D---- Lady Dumbello!" and then there was a pause. The countess had
no objection whatsoever to the above proposition, and was rejoiced
that that question of the servants was allowed to slip aside, through
the aid of her ladyship.

"Look at that letter from Porlock," said the earl; and he pushed
over to the unhappy mother a letter from her eldest son. Of all her
children he was the one she loved the best; but him she was never
allowed to see under her own roof. "I sometimes think that he is the
greatest rascal with whom I ever had occasion to concern myself,"
said the earl.

She took the letter and read it. The epistle was certainly not one
which a father could receive with pleasure from his son; but the
disagreeable nature of its contents was the fault rather of the
parent than of the child. The writer intimated that certain money due
to him had not been paid with necessary punctuality, and that unless
he received it, he should instruct his lawyer to take some authorised
legal proceedings. Lord de Courcy had raised certain moneys on
the family property, which he could not have raised without the
co-operation of his heir, and had bound himself, in return for that
co-operation, to pay a certain fixed income to his eldest son. This
he regarded as an allowance from himself; but Lord Porlock regarded
it as his own, by lawful claim. The son had not worded his letter
with any affectionate phraseology. "Lord Porlock begs to inform Lord
de Courcy--" Such had been the commencement.

"I suppose he must have his money; else how can he live?" said the
countess, trembling.

"Live!" shouted the earl. "And so you think it proper that he should
write such a letter as that to his father!"

"It is all very unfortunate," she replied.

"I don't know where the money's to come from. As for him, if he were
starving, it w