f that dreadful July night, by the unwearying assiduity of his
kinswoman, Miss Willoughby. On his recovery, the bride (for the Earl won
her heart and hand) who stood by him at the altar looked fainter and more
ghostly than the bridegroom. But her dark hour of levity was passed and
over. There is no more affectionate pair than the Earl and Countess of
Embleton. Lady Mary, who lives with them, is once more an aunt, and
spoils, it is to be feared, the young Viscount Scremerston, a fine but
mischievous little boy. On the fate of the ex-Jesuit we do not dwell:
enough to say that his punishment was decreed by the laws of our country,
not of that which he had disgraced.

The manuscripts of the Earl have been edited by him and the Countess for
the Roxburghe Club.

VIII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE LADY PATRONESS

'I cannot bring myself to refuse my assent. It would break the dear
child's heart. She has never cared for anyone else, and, oh, she is
quite wrapped up in him. I have heard of your wonderful cures, Mr.
Merton, I mean successes, in cases which everyone has given up, and
though it seems a very strange step to me, I thought that I ought to
shrink from no remedy'--

'However unconventional,' said Merton, smiling. He felt rather as if he
were being treated like a quack doctor, to whom people (if foolish
enough) appeal only as the last desperate resource.

The lady who filled, and amply filled, the client's chair, Mrs. Malory,
of Upwold in Yorkshire, was a widow, obviously, a widow indeed. 'In
weed' was an unworthy _calembour_ which flashed through Merton's mind,
since Mrs. Malory's undying regret for her lord (a most estimable man for
a coal owner) was explicitly declared, or rather was blazoned abroad, in
her costume. Mrs. Mallory, in fact, was what is derisively styled 'Early
Victorian'--'Middle' would have been, historically, more accurate. Her
religion was mildly Evangelical; she had been brought up on the Memoirs
of the Fairchild Family, by Mrs. Sherwood, tempered by Miss Yonge and the
Waverley Novels. On these principles she had trained her family. The
result was that her sons had not yet brought the family library, and the
family Romneys and Hoppners, to Christie's. Not one of them was a
director of any company, and the name of Malory had not yet been
distinguished by decorating the annals of the Courts of Bankruptcy or of
Divorce. In short, a family more deplorably not 'up to date,' and more