refined tastes that are supposed to accompany gentle blood, his love
of art, his talent for music and drawing, had accidentally attracted the
attention of the little travelling-party which old Lady Harbottle
chaperoned. Miss Janet, now Lady Mardykes, learning that his name was
Feltram, made inquiry through a common friend, and learned what
interested her still more about him. It ended in an acquaintance, which
his manly and gentle nature and his entertaining qualities soon improved
into an intimacy.

Feltram had chosen to work his own way, being proud, and also prosperous
enough to prevent his pride, in this respect, from being placed under
too severe a pressure of temptation. He heard not from but of his
brother, through a friend in London, and more lately from Gertrude,
whose account of him was sad and even alarming.

When Lady Mardykes came in, her delight knew no bounds. She had already
formed a plan for their future, and was not to be put off--William
Feltram was to take the great grazing farm that belonged to the Mardykes
estate; or, if he preferred it, to farm it for her, sharing the profits.
She wanted something to interest her, and this was just the thing. It
was hardly half-a-mile away, up the lake, and there was such a
comfortable house and garden, and she and Gertrude could be as much
together as ever almost; and, in fact, Gertrude and her husband could be
nearly always at Mardykes Hall.

So eager and entreating was she, that there was no escape. The plan was
adopted immediately on their marriage, and no happier neighbours for a
time were ever known.

But was Lady Mardykes content? was she even exempt from the heartache
which each mortal thinks he has all to himself? The longing of her life
was for children; and again and again had her hopes been disappointed.

One tiny pretty little baby indeed was born, and lived for two years,
and then died; and none had come to supply its place and break the
childless silence in the great old nursery. That was her sorrow; a
greater one than men can understand.

Another source of grief was this: that Sir Bale Mardykes conceived a
dislike to William Feltram that was unaccountable. At first suppressed,
it betrayed itself negatively only; but with time it increased; and in
the end the Baronet made little secret of his wish to get rid of him.
Many and ingenious were the annoyances he contrived; and at last he told
his wife plainly that he wished William Feltram to find