allow me to go to Paris when next there is talk of a Scotch
expedition. I had rather be in a boarding-school in the Champs Elysees
than in the finest castle in the Highlands. If it had not been for a
blessed quarrel with Fanny Follington, I think I should have died at
Glen Shorthorn. Have you seen my dear, dear uncle, the Colonel? When did
he arrive?"

"Is he come? Why is he come?" asks Lady Kew.

"Is he come? Look here, grandmamma! did you ever see such a darling
shawl! I found it in a packet in my room."

"Well, it is beautiful," cries the Dowager, bending her ancient nose
over the web. "Your Colonel is a galant homme. That must be said of him;
and in this does not quite take after the rest of the family. Hum! hum!
is he going away again soon?"

"He has made a fortune, a very considerable fortune for a man in that
rank in life," says Sir Barnes. "He cannot have less than sixty thousand
pounds."

"Is that much?" asks Ethel.

"Not in England, at our rate of interest; but his money is in India,
where he gets a great percentage. His income must be five or six
thousand pounds, ma'am," says Barnes, turning to Lady Kew.

"A few of the Indians were in society in my time, my dear," says Lady
Kew, musingly. "My father has often talked to me about Barbell of
Stanstead, and his house in St. James's Square; the man who ordered more
curricles when there were not carriages enough for his guests. I was
taken to Mr. Hastings's trial. It was very stupid and long. The young
man, the painter, I suppose will leave his paint-pots now, and set up as
a gentleman. I suppose they were very poor, or his father would not have
put him to such a profession. Barnes, why did you not make him a clerk
in the bank, and save him from the humiliation?"

"Humiliation! why, he is proud of it. My uncle is as proud as a
Plantagenet; though he is as humble as--as what! Give me a simile
Barnes. Do you know what my quarrel with Fanny Follington was about? She
said we were not descended from the barber-surgeon, and laughed at the
Battle of Bosworth. She says our great-grandfather was a weaver. Was he
a weaver?"

"How should I know? and what on earth does it matter, my child? Except
the Gaunts, the Howards, and one or two more, there is scarcely any good
blood in England. You are lucky in sharing some of mine. My poor Lord
Kew's grandfather was an apothecary at Hampton Court, and founded the
family by giving a dose of rhubarb to Queen Caroline. As a ru