atters himself that it was on his account she was agitated
yesterday, he is perfectly mistaken, and you may tell him Lady Kew said
so. She is subject to fainting fits. Dr. Finck has been attending her
ever since she has been here. She fainted only last Tuesday at the sight
of a rat walking about their lodgings (they have dreadful lodgings, the
Dorkings), and no wonder she was frightened at the sight of that great
coarse tipsy wretch! She is engaged, as you know, to your connexion, my
grandson, Barnes:--in all respects a most eligible union. The rank
of life of the parties suits them to one another. She is a good young
woman, and Barnes has experienced from persons of another sort such
horrors, that he will know the blessing of domestic virtue. It was high
time he should. I say all this in perfect frankness to you.

"Go back again and play in the garden, little brats" (this to the
innocents who came frisking in from the lawn in front of the windows).
"You have been? And Barnes sent you in here? Go up to Miss Quigley. No,
stop. Go and tell Ethel to come down; bring her down with you. Do you
understand?"

The unconscious infants toddle upstairs to their sister; and Lady Kew
blandly says, "Ethel's engagement to my grandson, Lord Kew, has long
been settled in our family, though these things are best not talked
about until they are quite determined, you know, my dear Mr. Newcome.
When we saw you and your father in London, we heard that you too-that
you too were engaged to a young lady in your own rank of life, a
Miss--what was her name?--Miss MacPherson, Miss Mackenzie. Your aunt,
Mrs. Hobson Newcome, who I must say is a most blundering silly person,
had set about this story. It appears there is no truth in it. Do not
look surprised that I know about your affairs. I am an old witch, and
know numbers of things."

And, indeed, how Lady Kew came to know this fact, whether her maid
corresponded with Lady Anne's maid, what her ladyship's means of
information were, avowed or occult, this biographer has never been able
to ascertain. Very likely Ethel, who in these last three weeks had been
made aware of that interesting circumstance, had announced it to Lady
Kew in the course of a cross-examination, and there may have been a
battle between the granddaughter and the grandmother, of which the
family chronicler of the Newcomes has had no precise knowledge.
That there were many such I know--skirmishes, sieges, and general
engagements