ermyn, with his brown eyes and his white hands,
has not come down here, in the month of August, with no sport of any
kind, for nothing."

"I shall set Lady Firebrace at him."

"She is quite your friend, and a very sensible woman too, Charles, and
an ally not to be despised. Lady Joan has a very high opinion of her.
There's the bell. Well, I shall tell Arabella that you mean to put up
the steam, and Lady Firebrace shall keep Jermyn off. And perhaps it is
as well you did not seem too eager at first. Mowbray Castle, my dear
fellow, in spite of its manufactories, is not to be despised. And with
a little firmness, you could keep the people out of your park. Mowbray
could do it, only he has no pluck. He is afraid people would say he was
the son of a footman."

The Duke, who was the father of the Countess de Mowbray, was also lord
lieutenant of the county. Although advanced in years, he was still
extremely handsome; with the most winning manners; full of amenity
and grace. He had been a roue in his youth, but seemed now the perfect
representative of a benignant and virtuous old age. He was universally
popular; admired by young men, adored by young ladies. Lord de Mowbray
paid him the most distinguished consideration. It was genuine. However
maliciously the origin of his own father might be represented, nobody
could deprive him of that great fact, his father-in-law; a duke, a duke
of a great house who had intermarried for generations with great houses,
one of the old nobility, and something even loftier.

The county of which his grace was Lord Lieutenant was very proud of its
nobility; and certainly with Marney Abbey at one end, and Mowbray Castle
at the other, it had just cause; but both these illustrious houses
yielded in importance, though not in possessions, to the great peer who
was the governor of the province.

A French actress, clever as French actresses always are, had persuaded,
once upon a time, an easy-tempered monarch of this realm, that the
paternity of her coming babe was a distinction of which his majesty
might be proud. His majesty did not much believe her; but he was a
sensible man, and never disputed a point with a woman; so when the
babe was born, and proved a boy, he christened him with his name;
and elevated him to the peerage in his cradle by the title of Duke of
Fitz-Aquitaine and Marquis of Gascony.

An estate the royal father could not endow him with, for he had spent
all his money, mortgaged al