ly foresighted if she had engaged herself with a
view to the succession, for at the time it began, the last Lord Northmoor
had two sons and a brother living! There was also a daughter, the
Honourable Bertha Augusta.

'Is she married?' demanded Mrs. Morton.

'It is not marked here, and if it had been mentioned in the papers, I
should not have failed to record it.'

'And how old is she?'

'The author of this peerage would never be guilty of the solecism of
recording a lady's age,' said Mr. Rollstone gravely; 'but as the
Honourable Arthur was born in 1848, and the Honourable Michael in 1850,
we may infer that the young lady is no longer in her first youth.'

'And not married? Nearly Fr--Lord Northmoor's age. She must be an old
cat who will set her mind on marrying him,' sighed Mrs. Morton, 'and will
make him cut all his own relations.'

'Then Mary Marshall might be the better lookout,' said Ida.

'She could never be unkind,' breathed little Constance.

'There is no knowing,' said Mr. Rollstone oracularly; 'but the result of
my observations has been that the true high-bred aristocracy are usually
far more affable and condescending than those elevated from a lower
rank.'

'Oh, I do hope for Miss Marshall,' said Constance in a whisper to Rose.

'Nasty old thing--a horrid old governess,' returned Ida; and they
tittered, scarcely pausing to hear Mr. Rollstone's announcement of the
discovery that he had entered the marriage in 1879 of the Honourable
Arthur Michael to Lady Adela Emily, only daughter of the Earl of
Arlington, and the death of the said Honourable Arthur by a carriage
accident four years later.

Then Herbert tumbled in, bringing a scent of tea and tar, and was greeted
with an imploring injunction to brush his hair and wash his hands--both
which operations he declared that he had performed, spreading out his
brown hands, which might be called clean, except for ingrained streaks of
tar. Mr. Rollstone tried to console his mother by declaring that it was
aristocratic to know how to handle the ropes; and Herbert, sitting among
the girls, began, while devouring sausages, to express his intention of
having a yacht, in which Rose should be taken on a voyage. No, not Ida;
she would only make a fool of herself on board; and besides, she had such
horrid sticking-out ears, with a pull at them, which made her scream, and
her mother rebuke him; while Mr. Rollstone observed that the young
gentleman had much to le