ght should be done," said Lord George, after a pause. "Whether it be
for weal or woe, justice should have its way. I never wished that the
child should be other than what he was called; but when there seemed to
be reason for doubt I thought that it should be proved."

"It will certainly come to you now, George, I suppose."

"Who can say? I might die to-night, and then Dick Germain, who is a
sailor somewhere, would be the next Lord Brotherton."

"Don't talk like that, George."

"He would be if your child happened to be a girl. And Brotherton might
live ever so long. I have been so harassed by it all that I am almost
sick of the title and sick of the property. I never grudged him
anything, and see how he has treated me." Then Mary was very gracious
to him and tried to comfort him, and told him that fortune had at any
rate given him a loving wife.

CHAPTER LIX.

BACK IN LONDON.

Mary was fond of her house in Munster Court. It was her own; and her
father and Miss Tallowax between them had enabled her to make it very
pretty. The married woman who has not some pet lares of her own is but
a poor woman. Mary worshipped her little household gods with a perfect
religion, and was therefore happy in being among them again; but she
was already beginning to feel that in a certain event she would be
obliged to leave Munster Court. She knew that as Marchioness of
Brotherton she would not be allowed to live there. There was a large
brick house, with an unbroken row of six windows on the first-floor, in
St. James' Square, which she already knew as the town house of the
Marquis of Brotherton. It was, she thought, by far the most gloomy
house in the whole square. It had been uninhabited for years, the
present Marquis having neither resided there nor let it. Her husband
had never spoken to her about the house, had never, as far as she could
remember, been with her in St. James' Square. She had enquired about it
of her father, and he had once taken her through the square, and had
shown her the mansion. But that had been in the days of the former
Popenjoy, when she, at any rate, had never thought that the
dreary-looking mansion would make or mar her own comfort. Now there had
arisen a question of a delicate nature on which she had said a word or
two to her husband in her softest whisper. Might not certain changes be
made in the house at Munster Court in reference to--well, to a nursery.
A room to be baby's own she had called i