bsconded with the family
dignity invested in his very name, no marital authority short of such
abuses of power as constitute the offence of cruelty in a wife's
action for divorce from social board and nuptial bed could prevent Lady
Chillingly from summoning all the grooms, sending them in all directions
with strict orders to bring back the runaway dead or alive; the walls
would be placarded with hand-bills, "Strayed from his home," etc.; the
police would be telegraphing private instructions from town to town;
the scandal would stick to Kenelm Chillingly for life, accompanied with
vague hints of criminal propensities and insane hallucinations; he would
be ever afterwards pointed out as "THE MAN WHO HAD DISAPPEARED." And to
disappear and to turn up again, instead of being murdered, is the most
hateful thing a man can do: all the newspapers bark at him, "Tray,
Blanche, Sweetheart, and all;" strict explanations of the unseemly fact
of his safe existence are demanded in the name of public decorum, and no
explanations are accepted; it is life saved, character lost.

Sir Peter seized his hat and walked forth, not to deliberate whether to
fib or not to fib to the wife of his bosom, but to consider what kind of
fib would the most quickly sink into the bosom of his wife.

A few turns to and fro on the terrace sufficed for the conception and
maturing of the fib selected; a proof that Sir Peter was a practised
fibber. He re-entered the house, passed into her ladyship's habitual
sitting-room, and said with careless gayety, "My old friend the Duke of
Clareville is just setting off on a tour to Switzerland with his family.
His youngest daughter, Lady Jane, is a pretty girl, and would not be a
bad match for Kenelm."

"Lady Jane, the youngest daughter with fair hair, whom I saw last as
a very charming child, nursing a lovely doll presented to her by the
Empress Eugenie,--a good match indeed for Kenelm."

"I am glad you agree with me. Would it not be a favourable step towards
that alliance, and an excellent thing for Kenelm generally, if he were
to visit the Continent as one of the Duke's travelling party?"

"Of course it would."

"Then you approve what I have done; the Duke starts the day after
to-morrow, and I have packed Kenelm off to town, with a letter to my old
friend. You will excuse all leave taking. You know that though the best
of sons he is an odd fellow; and seeing that I had talked him into it,
I struck while the iron