en with a smile,

"No, uncle; but I want you to ask him here again. I might tell him the
rest myself."

"But, Fanny, dear," said the countess, "your uncle couldn't do it: you
know, he told him to go away before. Besides, I really don't think he'd
come; he's so taken up with those horrid horses, and that Mr Blake, who
is worse than any of 'em. Really, Fanny, Kilcullen says that he and Mr
Blake are quite notorious."

"I think, aunt, Lord Kilcullen might be satisfied with looking after
himself. If it depended on him, he never had a kind word to say for
Lord Ballindine."

"But you know, Fanny," continued the aunt, "he knows everybody; and if
he says Lord Ballindine is that sort of person, why, it must be so,
though I'm sure I'm very sorry to hear it."

Lord Cashel saw that he could not trust any more to his wife: that last
hit about Kilcullen had been very unfortunate; so he determined to put
an end to all Fanny's yearnings after her lover with a strong hand, and
said,

"If you mean, Fanny, after what has passed, that I should go to Lord
Ballindine, and give him to understand that he is again welcome to
Grey Abbey, I must at once tell you that it is absolutely--absolutely
impossible. If I had no personal objection to the young man on any
prudential score, the very fact of my having already, at your request,
desired his absence from my house, would be sufficient to render it
impossible. I owe too much to my own dignity, and am too anxious for
your reputation, to think of doing such a thing. But when I also
remember that Lord Ballindine is a reckless, dissipated gambler--I
much fear, with no fixed principle, I should consider any step towards
renewing the acquaintance between you a most wicked and unpardonable
proceeding."

When Fanny heard her lover designated as a reckless gambler, she lost
all remaining feelings of fear at her uncle's anger, and, standing up,
looked him full in the face through her tears.

"It's not so, my lord!" she said, when he had finished. "He is not what
you have said. I know him too well to believe such things of him, and I
will not submit to hear him abused."

"Oh, Fanny, my dear!" said the frightened countess; "don't speak in
that way. Surely, your uncle means to act for your own happiness; and
don't you know Lord Ballindine has those horrid horses?"

"If I don't mind his horses, aunt, no one else need; but he's no
gambler, and he's not dissipated--I'm sure not half so much so as Lord