(an English participle, that means something as bad); God
bless you!"

And out he scuttled, glided after by Saunders, for whom he opened and
shut the street door.

Never was a greater effect produced by a doctor's visit; patient and
physician were made for each other. Dr. Aberford was the specific for
Lord Ipsden. He came to him like a shower to a fainting strawberry.

Saunders, on his return, found his lord pacing the apartment.

"Saunders," said he, smartly, "send down to Gravesend and order the
yacht to this place--what is it?"

"Granton Pier. Yes, my lord."

"And, Saunders, take clothes, and books, and violins, and telescopes,
and things--and me--to Euston Square, in an hour."

"Impossible,' my lord," cried Saunders, in dismay. "And there is no
train for hours."

His master replied with a hundred-pound note, and a quiet, but wickedish
look; and the prince of gentlemen's gentleman had all the required items
with him, in a special train, within the specified time, and away they
flashed, northward.

CHAPTER II.

IT is said that opposite characters make a union happiest; and perhaps
Lord Ipsden, diffident of himself, felt the value to him of a creature
so different as Lady Barbara Sinclair; but the lady, for her part, was
not so diffident of herself, nor was she in search of her opposite. On
the contrary, she was waiting patiently to find just such a man as she
was, or fancied herself, a woman.

Accustomed to measure men by their characters alone, and to treat with
sublime contempt the accidents of birth and fortune, she had been a
little staggered by the assurance of this butterfly that had proposed to
settle upon her hand--for life.

In a word, the beautiful writer of the fatal note was honestly romantic,
according to the romance of 1848, and of good society; of course she
was not affected by hair tumbling back or plastered down forward, and a
rolling eye went no further with her than a squinting one.

Her romance was stern, not sickly. She was on the lookout for iron
virtues; she had sworn to be wooed with great deeds, or never won; on
this subject she had thought much, though not enough to ask herself
whether great deeds are always to be got at, however disposed a lover
may be.

No matter; she kept herself in reserve for some earnest man, who was
not to come flattering and fooling to her, but look another way and do
exploits.

She liked Lord Ipsden, her cousin once removed, but despised him