an."

"Just that. He ought to have been a country letter-carrier. He would
have been as punctual as the sun, and has quite all the necessary
intellect."

"You sent for me, Lord Brotherton----"

"Yes; yes. I had something that I thought I might as well say to you,
though, upon my word, I almost forget what it was."

"Then I may as well take my leave."

"Don't do that. You see, Mr. Dean, belonging to the church militant as
you do, you are so heroically pugnacious! You must like fighting very
much."

"When I have anything which I conceive it to be my duty to fight for, I
think I do."

"Things are generally best got without fighting. You want to make your
grandson Marquis of Brotherton."

"I want to ensure to my grandson anything that may be honestly and
truly his own."

"You must first catch a grandson."

It was on his lips to say that certainly no heir should be caught on
his side of the family after the fashion that had been practised by his
lordship in catching the present pseudo-Popenjoy; but he was restrained
by a feeling of delicacy in regard to his own daughter. "My lord," he
said, "I am not here to discuss any such contingency."

"But you don't scruple to discuss my contingency, and that in the most
public manner. It has suited me, or at any rate it has been my chance,
to marry a foreigner. Because you don't understand Italian fashions you
don't scruple to say that she is not my wife."

"I have never said so."

"And to declare that my son is not my son."

"I have never said that."

"And to set a dozen attorneys to work to prove that my heir is a
bastard."

"We heard of your marriage, my lord, as having been fixed for a certain
date,--a date long subsequent to that of the birth of your son. What
were we to think?"

"As if that hadn't been explained to you, and to all the world, a dozen
times over. Did you never hear of a second marriage being solemnized in
England to satisfy certain scruples? You have sent out and made your
inquiries, and what have they come to? I know all about it."

"As far as I am concerned you are quite welcome to know everything."

"I dare say;--even though I should be stung to death by the knowledge.
Of course I understand. You think that I have no feeling at all."

"Not much as to duty to your family, certainly," said the Dean,
stoutly.

"Exactly. Because I stand a little in the way of your new ambition, I
am the Devil himself. And yet you and those who have abett