he whole drive had been thinking too much of that
transaction in Mr. Sowerby's bedroom to remember that the air was
cold. Now he had his arm round his own dear Fanny's waist; but was he
to tell her of that transaction? At any rate he would not do it now,
while his two boys were in his arms, rubbing the moisture from his
whiskers with their kisses. After all, what is there equal to that
coming home?

"And so Lufton is here. I say, Frank, gently, old boy,"--Frank was
his eldest son--"you'll have baby into the fender."

"Let me take baby; it's impossible to hold the two of them, they
are so strong," said the proud mother. "Oh, yes, he came home early
yesterday."

"Have you seen him?"

"He was here yesterday, with her ladyship; and I lunched there
to-day. The letter came, you know, in time to stop the Merediths.
They don't go till to-morrow, so you will meet them after all. Sir
George is wild about it, but Lady Lufton would have her way. You
never saw her in such a state as she is."

"Good spirits, eh?"

"I should think so. All Lord Lufton's horses are coming, and he's to
be here till March."

"Till March!"

"So her ladyship whispered to me. She could not conceal her triumph
at his coming. He's going to give up Leicestershire this year
altogether. I wonder what has brought it all about?" Mark knew very
well what had brought it about; he had been made acquainted, as the
reader has also, with the price at which Lady Lufton had purchased
her son's visit. But no one had told Mrs. Robarts that the mother had
made her son a present of five thousand pounds.

"She's in a good humour about everything now," continued Fanny; "so
you need say nothing at all about Gatherum Castle."

"But she was very angry when she first heard it; was she not?"

"Well, Mark, to tell the truth, she was; and we had quite a scene
there up in her own room upstairs--Justinia and I. She had heard
something else that she did not like at the same time; and then--but
you know her way. She blazed up quite hot."

"And said all manner of horrid things about me."

"About the duke she did. You know she never did like the duke; and
for the matter of that, neither do I. I tell you that fairly, Master
Mark!"

"The duke is not so bad as he's painted."

"Ah, that's what you say about another great person. However, he
won't come here to trouble us, I suppose. And then I left her, not in
the best temper in the world; for I blazed up too, you must know."