mijohn, fingering a
fourpenny bit so that he might see it.

"Thankye, Mum; no, I takes it reg'lar when I takes it. I'm on dooty
just at present."

"Your master's horses, I suppose?"

"Whose else, Mum? His lordship don't ride generally nobody's 'orses
but his own."

Here was a success! And the fourpenny bit saved! His lordship! "Of
course not," said Mrs. Demijohn. "Why should he?"

"Why, indeed, Mum?"

"Lord--; Lord--;--Lord who, is he?"

The groom poked up his hat, and scratched his head, and bethought
himself. A servant generally wishes to do what honour he can to his
master. This man had no desire to gratify an inquisitive old woman,
but he thought it derogatory to his master and to himself to seem
to deny their joint name. "'Ampstead!" he said, looking down very
serenely on the lady, and then moved on, not wasting another word.

"I knew all along they were something out of the common way," said
Mrs. Demijohn as soon as her niece came in.

"You haven't found out who it is, aunt?"

"You've been with Mrs. Duffer, I suppose. You two'd put your heads
together for a week, and then would know nothing." It was not till
quite the last thing at night that she told her secret. "He was a
peer! He was Lord 'Ampstead!"

"A peer!"

"He was Lord 'Ampstead, I tell you," said Mrs. Demijohn.

"I don't believe there is such a lord," said Clara, as she took
herself up to bed.

CHAPTER VII.

THE POST OFFICE.

When George Roden came home that evening the matter was discussed
between him and his mother at great length. She was eager with him,
if not to abandon his love, at any rate to understand how impossible
it was that he should marry Lady Frances. She was very tender with
him, full of feeling, full of compassion and sympathy; but she
was persistent in declaring that no good could come from such an
engagement. But he would not be deterred in the least from his
resolution, nor would he accept it as possible that he should be
turned from his object by the wishes of any person as long as Lady
Frances was true to him. "You speak as if daughters were slaves," he
said.

"So they are. So women must be;--slaves to the conventions of the
world. A young woman can hardly run counter to her family on a
question of marriage. She may be persistent enough to overcome
objections, but that will be because the objections themselves are
not strong enough to stand against her. But here the objections will
be very strong."