ng to the Marchioness,--that a nobleman should indulge
himself with liberal politics; but it was dreadful to think that
the heir to a great title should condescend to opinions worthy of a
radical tailor. For Mr. Greenwood agreed with Lord Hampstead about
the tailor. Lord Hampstead seemed to him to be a matter simply for
sorrow,--not for action. Nothing, he thought, could be done in regard
to Lord Hampstead. Time,--time that destroys but which also cures so
many things,--would no doubt have its effect; so that Lord Hampstead
might in the fulness of years live to be as staunch a supporter of
his class as any Duke or Marquis living. Or perhaps,--perhaps, it
might be that the Lord would take him. Mr. Greenwood saw that this
remark was more to the purpose, and at once went to work with the
Peerage, and found a score of cases in which, within half-a-century,
the second brother had risen to the title. It seemed, indeed, to be
the case that a peculiar mortality attached itself to the eldest sons
of Peers. This was comforting. But there was not in it so much ground
for positive action as at the present moment existed in regard to
Lady Frances. On this matter there was a complete unison of spirit
between the two friends.

Mr. Greenwood had seen the objectionable young man, and could say how
thoroughly objectionable he was at all points,--how vulgar, flippant,
ignorant, impudent, exactly what a clerk in the Post Office might
be expected to be. Any severity, according to Mr. Greenwood, would
be justified in keeping the two young persons apart. Gradually Mr.
Greenwood learnt to talk of the female young person with very little
of that respect which he showed to other members of the family. In
this way her ladyship came to regard Lady Frances as though she were
not Lady Frances at all,--as though she were some distant Fanny
Trafford, a girl of bad taste and evil conduct, who had unfortunately
been brought into the family on grounds of mistaken charity.

Things had so gone on at Trafford, that Trafford had hardly been
preferable to Koenigsgraaf. Indeed, at Koenigsgraaf there had been
no Mr. Greenwood, and Mr. Greenwood had certainly added much to
the annoyances which poor Lady Frances was made to bear. In this
condition of things she had written to her brother, begging him to
come to her. He had come, and thus had taken place the conversation
which has been given above.

On the same day Hampstead saw his father and discussed the mat