She was very nice, and he
liked her uncommonly, but he didn't want to know anything more about
her. By George! Was a man to be persecuted this way, because he had
once spooned a girl a little too fiercely? As he thought of this he
almost plucked up his courage sufficiently to tell Mrs. Jones that she
had better pick out some other young man for deportation to
Killancodlem. "I should like it ever so," he said.

"I'll take care that you shall like it, Lord Giblet. I think I may
boast that when I put my wits to work I can make my house agreeable.
I'm very fond of young people, but there's no one I love as I do Olivia
Green. There isn't a young woman in London has so much to be loved for.
Of course you'll come. What day shall we name?"

"I don't think I could name a day."

"Let us say the 27th. That will give you nearly a week at the grouse
first. Be with us to dinner on the 27th."

"Well,--perhaps I will."

"Of course you will. I shall write to Olivia to-night, and I daresay
you will do so also."

Lord Giblet, when he was let to go, tried to suck consolation from the
L10,000. Though he was still resolved, he almost believed that Mrs.
Montacute Jones would conquer him. Write to Olivia to-night! Lying,
false old woman! Of course she knew that there was hardly a lady in
England to whom it was so little likely that he should write as to Miss
Patmore Green. How could an old woman, with one foot in the grave, be
so wicked? And why should she persecute him? What had he done to her?
Olivia Green was not her daughter, or even her niece. "So you are going
to Killancodlem?" Mrs. Houghton said to him that afternoon.

"She has asked me," said Lord Giblet.

"It's simply the most comfortable house in all Scotland, and they tell
me some of the best deer-stalking. Everybody likes to get to
Killancodlem. Don't you love old Mrs. Jones?"

"Charming old woman!"

"And such a friend! If she once takes to you she never drops you."

"Sticks like wax, I should say."

"Quite like wax, Lord Giblet. And when she makes up her mind to do a
thing she always does it. It's quite wonderful; but she never gets
beaten."

"Doesn't she now?"

"Never. She hasn't asked us to Killancodlem yet, but I hope she will."
A manly resolution now roused itself in Lord Giblet's bosom that he
would be the person to beat Mrs. Jones at last. But yet he doubted. If
he were asked the question by anyone having a right to ask he could not
deny that he had propos