her book on to her lap and looking up
languidly.

"They told me you were ill, or I don't
know that I should have come," retorted
Lady Hetherington, with some asperity.

"Ah, that was quite right of them; I
told them to say that. You can go,
Phillips"—to the maid—"I'll ring when I
want you. I don't suppose there's any
harm in sending mendacious messages by
the servants, do you? It would be far
more demoralising to them if one were to
tell the truth and say one was lazy, and
that kind of thing, because it would provoke
their contempt instead of their pity, and
fill them with horrible revolutionary ideas
that there was no reason why they shouldn't
be lazy as well as we, and all sorts of
dreadful things."

"If I had thought it was mere laziness
that kept you to your room this morning,
Caroline, I think my 'dislike of taking
trouble in a general way' would have
influenced me in this particular instance, and
saved you the bore of my interrupting
you."

"That's where you're so ungenerous,
Margaret! Not the smallest bore in the
world; the stupidity of this book, and
Phillips's action with the hair-brush,
combined, were sending me off to sleep, and
you interfered at an opportune moment
to rescue me. How is West, this morning?"

"Very much as he was last night.
Intent on distinguishing himself on this—
what do you call it? irrigation scheme."

"Oh dear, still harping on those channels
and pipes and all the rest of it! Poor Mr.
Joyce, there is plenty of work in store for
him, poor fellow!"

"Dreadful, will it not be? for that charming
young man to be compelled to work,
to earn his wages!" said Lady Hetherington,
with a sneer.

Lady Caroline looked up, half-astonished,
half-defiant. "Salary, not wages,
Margaret!" she said, after a moment's pause.

"Salary, then!" said her ladyship,
shortly; "it's all the same thing!"

"No, dear, it isn't! Salary isn't wages;
just as the pin-money which West allows
you isn't hire! You see the difference,
dear?"

"I see that you're making a perfect fool
of yourself, with regard to this man!"
exclaimed Lady Hetherington, thoroughly
roused.

"What man?" asked Lady Caroline, in
all apparent simplicity.

"What man? Why this Mr. Joyce! And
I think, Caroline, that if you choose to
forget your own position, you ought to
think of us, and have some little regard for
decency, at all events so long as you're
staying in our house!"

"All right, dear!" said Lady Caroline,
with perfect coolness. "I'm sorry that
my conduct gives you offence, but the
remedy is easy: I'll tell West how you
feel about it at luncheon, and I'll leave
your house before dinner!"

A home thrust, as Lady Caroline well
knew. The only time that Lord Hetherington
during his life had managed to pluck
up a spirit, was on the occasion of some real
or fancied slight offered by his wife to his
sister. Tail-lashings and roarings, and a
display of fangs are expected from the
tiger, if, as the poet finely puts it, "it is his
nature to." But when the mild and
inoffensive sheep paws the ground and makes
ready for an onslaught with his head, it is
the more terrible because it is so
unexpected. Lord Hetherington's assertion of
his dignity and his rights on the one
occasion in question was so tremendous
that her ladyship never forgot it, and she
was extremely unwilling to go through
such another scene. So her manner was
considerably modified, and her voice considerably
lowered in tone, as she said:

"No, but really, Caroline, you provoke
me in saying things which you know I
don't mean! You are so thoughtless and
headstrong——"

"I never was cooler or calmer in my
life! You complain of my conduct in your
house! It would be utterly beneath me
to defend that conduct, it requires no
defence, so I take the only alternative left,
and quit your house!"

"No; but Caroline, can't you see——"

"I can see this, Lady Hetherington, and
I shall mention it once for all! You have
never treated that gentleman, Mr. Joyce,
as he ought to be treated. He is a gentleman
in mind, and thought, and education;
and he comes here, and does for poor dear
stupid West what West is totally unable to
do himself, and yet is most anxious to have
the credit of. The position which Mr.
Joyce holds is a most delicate one, one
which he fills most delicately, but one
which any man with a less acute sense of
honour and right might use to his own
advantage, and to bring ridicule on his
employer. Don't fancy I'm hard on dear old
West in saying this; if he's your husband,
he's my brother, and you can't be more