notion of such a title borne by insolvency:
with the Union Workhouse for its family
seat.

"Pooh, pooh!" said my lord, the next
day, in the drawing-room as we waited for
dinner, "what's an incumbrance here or there?
We might push you through that. There
are many with odd thousands to spare
who would not grudge it to a young man
starting in life."

Here entered the daughter, Constance:
white-faced, but with an air of true aristocracy
—with a stately bearing as of a queen.
Blood always makes itself so felt. The
poor saffron-haired damsel always came in,
gently and timorously, as if uncertain what
treatment she might encounter, Constance
had a noble arch in her neck, as if she
were born to command. How gracious she
was to me all that night, as was also the
noble lord her father, I will not dwell on
now. There were fresh particulars concerning
the Barony. Nay, my lord had need only
to lift up his little linger and the thing was
done.

Poleaxe was a botch. Leave it to my
lord.  But he would take leave to say one
thing: Young men of noble blood, starting
in life, should think of settling down,
and of having done with wild oats. To one
conclusion, however, he began to point without
disguise: to his own pure-blooded,
white-faced daughter; and, as to that matter
of pressing mortgage and money difficulty,
why, who would not have pleasure in
helping on a young man who had come to
such straits by no fault of his own?

XI.

I GREW into favour with the white-faced
maid; and paid her court, all to that end
which I thought my lord had hinted at. I
grew into favour with her: but it was a
cold suit: the very corpse of wooing.
No blandishments of that piece of quality
could warm it up. No, not in the least. I
have written it down, that I had cast off
violently all that bound me to the baronet
and to his. All!  I fear me all this while
those golden threads are still drawing, drawing
me gently back again. That pale
saffron-hair is in a fearful tangle about my
heart! More weary, weary nights and heavy
thoughts! O this nobility!

XII.

BUT how about Foreclosure, Distress, and
Levy, and their attendant harpies, all this
while: and specially about the strange men I
had been sent over to meet?  My lord would
nod and wink strangely as I mentioned this—
would try and turn off the matter; but never
wholly denying participation. But, what led
the fellows over to the spick-and-span
Factory? There was something always whispering
to me that there was a certain mysterious
connection between the Factory family and
that staving off of cruel Fi-fa, Levari, and
Company.

But again my lord winked and looked
knowing—would tell nothing—no, not a
word.

"Come over to-morrow evening," wrote my
lord, "I have something serious to speak of
to you." It needed not an Œdipus to guess
what. So it was incumbent on me to
set out at his bidding, even through that
dark December evening, when there were
signs of a storm coming on. Right cheerfully
in olden days would I have ridden forth in
another direction. But that was over now.

Never was my lord in such cheerful
humour. He was all points and pleasant
turns; positively gay as a lark. Those
shining false rows of teeth of his were always
on view, and he was full of the liveliest
notions on human things generally. He was
pleased to say he took great delight in my
humour—which, to say the truth, was of the
dismallest. His walnuts went cracking off
under his aristocratic fingers to the music of
his own happy quips and light talk. The
noble white-faced lady, too, was fitted out
gorgeously, and was filled with an overflowing
graciousness and extra sweetness.

The walnuts went cracking on, and the
light talk kept pace with them. Strange to
say, all that night long my lord made no
allusion to that matter of blood—a word
seldom five minutes absent from his talk.
I recollect that, distinctly, and it struck me
at the time as being a curious thing.

The walnuts went cracking on. The talk
fell round on my concerns. How pleasant
a thing it would be, he said, if I could be set
free and straight upon my legs. No
incumbrance, no mortgage, no risk of Ca-sa,
Fi-fa, and Company. Which tune he sang for
a good long spell: then, turning suddenly
on me, he would know had I been thinking
of the way I was in?

To which I replied (in an absent fashion,
for I was thinking of other things), that I
had been thinking of it deeply, but could see
no mode of extrication beyond one. At this
beginning of business talk, Constance rose
and retired.

"Pah!" said my lord, with all the teeth
on view at once. "I will help your thoughts
for you. Between persons of our high rank,
and especially between persons of our relative
ages, there should be no beating about
the bush. I have not had my eyes shut all
this while. No, no!"

Crack went a walnut again, and his head
went back upon his shoulder to survey me
with his knowing look. Then my lord went
on to say, over again, that he had not had his
eyes shut all that while—that he had seen
what had been going on—that we had
managed it cleverly, very cleverly, very
cleverly indeed—in short, I should be set free
and clear to start with: there should not be
so much as a pound outlying against me. To