er side, Manor Cross and the Palace fell out. Their
own excellent young clergyman was snubbed in reference to his church
postures, and Lady Sarah was offended. But the Dean's manners were
perfect. He never trod on any one's toes. He was rich, and as far as
birth went, nobody,--but he knew how much was due to the rank of the
Germains. In all matters he obliged them, and had lately made the
deanery very pleasant to Lady Alice,--to whom a widowed canon at
Brotherton was supposed to be partial. The interest between the deanery
and Manor Cross was quite close; and now Mr. Tallowax had died leaving
the greater part of his money to the Dean's daughter.

When a man suffers from disappointed love he requires consolation.
Lady Sarah boldly declared her opinion,--in female conclave of
course,--that one pretty girl is as good to a man as another, and might
be a great deal better if she were at the same time better mannered and
better dowered than the other. Mary Lovelace, when her grandfather
died, was only seventeen. Lord George was at that time over thirty. But
a man of thirty is still a young man, and a girl of seventeen may be a
young woman. If the man be not more than fifteen years older than the
woman the difference of age can hardly be regarded as an obstacle. And
then Mary was much loved at Manor Cross. She had been a most engaging
child, was clever, well-educated, very pretty, with a nice sparkling
way, fond of pleasure no doubt, but not as yet instructed to be fast.
And now she would have at once thirty thousand pounds, and in course of
time would be her father's heiress.

All the ladies at Manor Cross put their heads together,--as did also
Mr. Canon Holdenough, who, while these things had been going on, had
been accepted by Lady Alice. They fooled Lord George to the top of his
bent, smoothing him down softly amidst the pangs of his love, not
suggesting Mary Lovelace at first, but still in all things acting in
that direction. And they so far succeeded that within twelve months of
the marriage of Adelaide De Baron to Mr. Houghton, when Mary Lovelace
was not yet nineteen and Lord George was thirty-three, with some few
grey hairs on his handsome head, Lord George did go over to the deanery
and offer himself as a husband to Mary Lovelace.

CHAPTER II.

INTRODUCTORY NUMBER TWO.

"What ought I to do, papa?" The proposition was in the first instance
made to Mary through the Dean. Lord George had gone to the father,