t; "I have
not the ever-ready talent of your friend, Captain Grouse."

"I do not know what you mean by my friend Captain Grouse. Captain Grouse
is no more my friend than your friend. One must have people about the
house to do a thousand things which one cannot do oneself, and which one
cannot trust to servants, and Grouse does all this capitally."

"Exactly; he is just what I said, a capital hanger-on if you like, but
still a hanger-on."

"Well, and what then! Suppose he is a hanger-on; may I not have
hangers-on as well as any other man?"

"Of course you may; but I am not bound to regret their absence."

"Who said you were? But I will regret their absence, if I choose. And I
regret the absence of Grouse, regret it very much; and if he did happen
to be inextricably engaged in this unfortunate match, I say, and you
may contradict me if you please, that he ought to have taken care that
Slimsey dined here, to tell me all that had happened."

"I am very glad he omitted to do so," said Egremont; "I prefer Grouse to
Slimsey."

"I dare say you do," said Lord Marney, filling his glass and
looking very black; "you would like, I have no doubt, to see a fine
gentleman-saint, like your friend Mr St Lys, at Marney, preaching in
cottages, filling the people with discontent, lecturing me about low
wages, soliciting plots of grounds for new churches, and inveigling
Arabella into subscriptions to painted windows."

"I certainly should like to see a man like Aubrey St Lys at Marney,"
said Egremont quietly, but rather doggedly.

"And if he were here, I would soon see who should be master," said Lord
Marney; "I would not succumb like Mowbray. One might as well have a
jesuit in the house at once."

"I dare say St Lys would care very little about entering your house,"
said Egremont. "I know it was with great reluctance that he ever came to
Mowbray Castle."

"I dare say; very great reluctance indeed. And very reluctant he was,
I make no doubt, to sit next to Lady Maud. I wonder he does not fly
higher, and preach to Lady Joan; but she is too sensible a woman for
such fanatical tricks."

"St Lys thinks it his duty to enter all societies. That is the reason
why he goes to Mowbray Castle, as well as to the squalid courts and
cellars of the town. He takes care that those who are clad in purple
and fine linen shall know the state of their neighbours. They cannot
at least plead ignorance for the nonfulfilment of their duty. Before St