arther and fare worse than my brother's servants'-hall, and besides
Fan, there's only the maids or old Maria to choose from."

"Maria! Impossible!" And yet, as she spoke the very words, a sudden
thought crossed Madame Bernstein's mind, that this elderly Calypso might
have captivated her young Telemachus. She called to mind half a dozen
instances in her own experience of young men who had been infatuated by
old women. She remembered how frequent Harry Warrington's absences
had been of late--absences which she attributed to his love for field
sports. She remembered how often, when he was absent, Maria Esmond
was away too. Walks in cool avenues, whisperings in garden temples, or
behind clipt hedges, casual squeezes of the hand in twilight corridors,
or sweet glances and ogles in meetings on the stairs,--a lively fancy,
an intimate knowledge of the world, very likely a considerable personal
experience in early days, suggested all these possibilities and
chances to Madame de Bernstein, just as she was saying that they were
impossible.

"Impossible, ma'am! I don't know," Will continued. "My mother warned Fan
off him."

"Oh, your mother did warn Fanny off?"

"Certainly, my dear Baroness!"

"Didn't she? Didn't she pinch Fanny's arm black-and-blue? Didn't they
fight about it?"

"Nonsense, William! For shame, William!" cry both the implicated ladies
in a breath.

"And now, since we have heard how rich he is, perhaps it is sour grapes,
that is all. And now, since he is warned off the young bird, perhaps he
is hunting the old one, that's all. Impossible why impossible? You know
old Lady Suffolk, ma'am?"

"William, how can you speak about Lady Suffolk to your aunt?"

A grin passed over the countenance of the young gentleman. "Because
Lady Suffolk was a special favourite at Court? Well, other folks have
succeeded her."

"Sir!" cries Madame de Bernstein, who may have had her reasons to take
offence.

"So they have, I say; or who, pray, is my Lady Yarmouth now? And didn't
old Lady Suffolk go and fall in love with George Berkeley, and marry him
when she was ever so old? Nay, ma'am, if I remember right--and we hear
a deal of town-talk at our table--Harry Estridge went mad about your
ladyship when you were somewhat rising twenty; and would have changed
your name a third time if you would but have let him."

This allusion to an adventure of her own later days, which was, indeed,
pretty notorious to all the world, did not an