s the gentlefolks call it,
tells me in what part of the room the cat is."

My aunt turned to her husband, without attempting to conceal that she
took no sort of interest in the groom's antipathies.

"Haven't you done with the man yet?" she asked.

The General gave the groom his dismissal.

"You shall hear from me in three days' time. Good-morning."

Michael Bloomfield seemed to have noticed my aunt's ungracious manner.
He looked at her for a moment with steady attention before he left the
room.

V.

"You don't mean to engage that man?" said Lady Claudia as the door
closed.

"Why not?" asked my uncle.

"I have taken a dislike to him."

This short answer was so entirely out of the character of my aunt that
the General took her kindly by the hand, and said:

"I am afraid you are not well."

She irritably withdrew her hand.

"I don't feel well. It doesn't matter."

"It does matter, Claudia. What can I do for you?"

"Write to the man--" She paused and smiled contemptuously. "Imagine a
groom with an antipathy to cats!" she said, turning to me. "I don't know
what you think, Mina. I have a strong objection, myself, to servants
who hold themselves above their position in life. Write," she resumed,
addressing her husband, "and tell him to look for another place."

"What objection can I make to him?" the General asked, helplessly.

"Good heavens! can't you make an excuse? Say he is too young."

My uncle looked at me in expressive silence--walked slowly to the
writing-table--and glanced at his wife, in the faint hope that she might
change her mind. Their eyes met--and she seemed to recover the command
of her temper. She put her hand caressingly on the General's shoulder.

"I remember the time," she said, softly, "when any caprice of mine was a
command to you. Ah, I was younger then!"

The General's reception of this little advance was thoroughly
characteristic of him. He first kissed Lady Claudia's hand, and then he
wrote the letter. My aunt rewarded him by a look, and left the library.

"What the deuce is the matter with her?" my uncle said to me when we
were alone. "Do you dislike the man, too?"

"Certainly not. As far as I can judge, he appears to be just the sort of
person we want."

"And knows thoroughly well how to manage horses, my dear. What _can_ be
your aunt's objection to him?"

As the words passed his lips Lady Claudia opened the library door.

"I am so ashamed of myself," she said, sweet