orget what I did for them.

"And now I want to ask you your opinion about another friend.
Don't you think that Jack had better settle down with poor dear
Guss? She's here, and upon my word I think she's nearly
broken-hearted. Of course you and I know what Jack has been
thinking of lately. But when a child cries for the top brick of
the chimney, it is better to let him have some possible toy. You
know what top brick he has been crying for. But I'm sure you like
him, and so do I, and I think we might do something for him. Mr.
Jones would let them a nice little house a few miles from here at
a peppercorn rent; and I suppose old Mr. Mildmay could do
something. They are engaged after a fashion. She told me all about
it the other day. So I've asked him to come down for Christmas,
and have offered to put up his horses if he wants to hunt.

"And now, my dear, I want to know what you have heard about Lord
Brotherton at Manor Cross. Of course we all know the way he has
behaved to Lord George. If I were Lord George I should not pay the
slightest attention to him. But I'm told he is in a very low
condition,--never sees anybody except his courier, and never stirs
out of the house. Of course you know that he makes his wife an
allowance, and refuses to see her. From what I hear privately I
really do think that he'll not last long. What a blessing it would
be! That's plain speaking;--but it would be a blessing! Some
people manage to live so that everybody will be the better for
their dying. I should break my heart if anybody wanted me to die.

"How grand it would be! The young and lovely Marchioness of
Brotherton! I'll be bound you think about it less than anybody
else, but it would be nice. I wonder whether you'd cut a poor old
woman like me, without a handle to her name. And then it would be
Popenjoy at once! Only how the bonfires wouldn't burn if it should
turn out to be only a disability after all. But we should say,
better luck next time, and send you caudle cups by the dozen. Who
wouldn't send a caudle cup to a real young lovely live
Marchioness? I'll be bound your father knows all about it, and has
counted it all up a score of times. I suppose it's over L40,000 a
year since they took to working the coal at Popenjoy, and whatever
the present man has d