'I beg your pardon for the pious fraud!'

'It is very good! Excellently done!' said Lord Ormersfield. 'There are redundancies--much to betray an unpractised hand--but--stay, let me hear the rest--' Very differently did he listen now, broad awake, attacking the logic of every third sentence, or else double shotting it with some ponderous word, and shaking his head at Utopian views of crime to be dried up at the fountain head. Next, he must hear the beginning, and ruthlessly picked it to pieces, demolishing all the Vehme Gericht and Santissima Hermandad as irrelevant, and, when he had made Louis ashamed and vexed with the whole production, astonishing him by declaring that it would tell, and advising him to copy it out fair with these _little_ alterations.

These _little_ alterations would, as he was well aware, evaporate all the spirit, and though glad to have pleased his father, his perseverance quailed before the task; but he said no more than thank you. The next day, before he had settled to anything, Lord Ormersfield came to his room, saying, 'You will be engaged with your more important studies for the next few hours. Can you spare the paper you read to me last night?'

'I can spare it better than you can read it, I fear,' said Louis, producing a ma.s.s of blotted MS in all his varieties of penmanship, and feeling a sort of despair at the prospect of being brought to book on all his details.

His father carried it off, and they did not meet again till late in the day, when the first thing Louis heard was, 'I thought it worth while to have another opinion on your ma.n.u.script before re-writing it. I tried to read it to Mrs. Ponsonby, but we were interrupted, and I left it with her.'

Presently after. 'I have made an engagement for you. Lady Conway wishes that you should go to luncheon with her to-morrow. I believe she wants to consult you about some birth-day celebration.'

Louis was much surprised, and somewhat entertained.

'When will you have the carriage?' pursued the Earl.

'Will not you come?'

'No, I am not wanted. In fact, I do not see how you can be required, but anything will serve as an excuse. In justice, however, I should add that our friends at the Terrace are disposed to think well of the younger part of the family.'

Except for the cold constraint of the tone, Louis could have thought much ground gained, but he was sure that his holiday would be damped by knowing that it was conceded at the cost of much distress and uneasiness.

Going to Northwold early enough for a call at No. 5, he was greeted by Mrs. Frost with, 'My dear! what have you been about? I never saw your father so much pleased in his life! He came in on purpose to tell me, and I thought it exceedingly kind. So you took him in completely.

What an impudent rogue you always were!'

'I never meant it to go beyond the study. I was obliged to write it down in self-defence, that I might know what he was talking of.'

'I believe he expects you to be even with Sydney Calcott after all. It is really very clever. Where did you get all those funny stories?'

'What! you have gone and read it!'

'Ah, ha! Mrs. Ponsonby gave us a pretty little literary soiree. Don't be too proud, it was only ourselves, except that Mary brought in Miss Conway. Jem tried to read it, but after he had made that Spanish Society into 'Hammer men dead,' Mary got it away from him, and read through as if it had been in print.'

'What an infliction!'

'It is very disrespectful to think us so frivolous. We only wished all reviews were as entertaining.'

'It is too bad, when I only wanted to mystify my father.'

'It serves you right for playing tricks. What have you been doing to him, Louis? You will turn him into a doting father before long.'

'What have you done with Clara?'

'She goes every day to read Italian with Miss Conway, and the governess is so kind as to give her drawing lessons. She is learning far more than at school, and they are so kind! I should hardly know how to accept it, but Jem does not object, and he is really very useful there, spends a great deal of time on the boy, and is teaching the young ladies Latin.'

'They are leaving you lonely in the holidays! You ought to come to Ormersfield, your nephews would take better care of you.'

'Ah! I have my Marys. If I were only better satisfied about the dear old one. She is far less well than when she came.'

'Indeed! Is Mary uneasy?'

'She says nothing, but you know how her eye is always on her, and she never seems to have her out of her thoughts. I am afraid they are worried about Lima. From what Oliver says, I fear Mr. Ponsonby goes on worse than ever without either his family or his appointment to be a restraint.'

'I hope they do not know all! Mary would not believe it, that is one comfort!'

'Ah, Louis! there are things that the heart will not believe, but which cut it deeply! However, if that could be any comfort to them, he wishes them to spare nothing here. He tells them they may live at the rate of five thousand pounds a-year, poor dears. Indeed, he and Oliver are in such glory over their Equatorial steam navigation, that I expect next to hear of a crash.'

'You don't look as if it would be a very dreadful sound.'

'If it would only bring my poor Oliver back to me!'

'Yes--nothing would make Jem so civil to him as his coming floated in on a plank, wet through, with a little bundle in one hand and a parrot in the other.'

Mrs. Frost gave one of her tender laughs, and filled up the picture.

'Jane would open the door, Jane would know Master Oliver's black eyes in a moment--'No, no. _I_ must see him first! If he once looked up I could not miss him, whatever colour he may have turned. I wonder whether he would know me!'

'Don't you know that you grow handsomer every year, Aunt Kitty?'

'Don't flatter, sir.'

'Well, I most go to my aunt.'

He tarried to hear the welcome recital of all the kind deeds of the house of Conway. He presently found Lady Conway awaiting him in the drawing-room, and was greeted with great joy. 'That is well! I hoped to work on your father by telling him I did not approve of young men carrying industry too far--'

'That is not my habit.'

'Then it is your excuse for avoiding troublesome relations! No, not a word! I know nothing about the secret that occupied Isabel at Mrs.

Ponsonby's select party. But I really wanted you. You are more au fait as to the society here than the Ponsonbys and Dynevors. Ah! when does that come off?'

'What is to come off?'

'Miss Ponsonby and Mr. Dynevor. What a good creature he is!'

'I cannot see much likelihood of it, but you are more on the scene of action.'

'She could do much better, with such expectations, but on his account I could not be sorry. It is shocking to think of that nice young sister being a governess. I think it a duty to give her every advantage that may tend to form her. With her connexions and education, I can have no objection to her as a companion to your cousins, and with a few advantages, though she will never be handsome, she might marry well.

They are a most interesting family. Isabel and I are most anxious to do all in our power for them.'

'Clara is obliged,' said Louis, with undetected irony, but secret wonder at the dexterity with which the patronage must have been administered so as not to have made the interesting family fly off at a tangent.

Isabel made her appearance in her almost constant morning dress of soft dove-coloured merino entirely unadorned, and looking more like a maiden in a romance than ever. She had just left Adeline standing on the steps of a stone cross, exhorting the Provencals to arm against a descent of Moorish corsairs, and she held out her hand to Fitzjocelyn much as Adeline did, when the fantastic Viscount professed his intention of flying instead of fighting, and wanted her to sit behind him on his courser.

Lady Conway p.r.o.nounced her council complete, and propounded the fete which she wished to give on the 12th of January in honour of Louisa's birthday. Isabel took up a pencil, and was lost in sketching wayside crosses, and vessels with lateen sails, only throwing in a word or two here and there when necessary. Dancing was still, Lady Conway feared, out of the question with Fitzjocelyn.

'And always will be, I suspect. So much for my bargain with Clara to dance with her at her first ball!'

'You like dancing?' exclaimed Isabel, rejoiced to find another resemblance to the fantastic Viscount.

'Last year's Yeomanry ball was the best fun in the world!'