sconduct. Now--"

"I will not hear you, Hampstead; not a word. You can persuade your
father, I dare say, but you cannot persuade me. Fanny has divorced
herself from my heart for ever."

"I am sorry for that."

"And I'm bound to say that you are doing the same. It is better in
some cases to be plain."

"Oh--certainly; but not to be irrational."

"I am not irrational, and it is most improper for you to speak to me
in that way."

"Well, good-bye. I have no doubt it will come right some of these
days," said Hampstead, as he took his leave. Then he carried his
sister off to Hendon.

Previous to this there had been a great deal of unpleasantness in
the house. From the moment in which Lady Kingsbury had heard that
her stepdaughter was to go to her brother she had refused even to
speak to the unfortunate girl. As far as it was possible she put her
husband also into Coventry. She held daily consultations with Mr.
Greenwood, and spent most of her hours in embracing, coddling, and
spoiling those three unfortunate young noblemen who were being so
cruelly injured by their brother and sister. One of her keenest pangs
was in seeing how boisterously the three bairns romped with "Jack"
even after she had dismissed him from her own good graces as utterly
unworthy of her regard. That night he positively brought Lord Gregory
down into the drawing-room in his night-shirt, having dragged the
little urchin out of his cot,--as one might do who was on peculiar
terms of friendship with the mother. Lord Gregory was in Elysium, but
the mother tore the child from the sinner's arms, and carried him
back in anger to the nursery.

"Nothing does children so much good as disturbing them in their
sleep," said Lord Hampstead, turning to his father; but the anger of
the Marchioness was too serious a thing to allow of a joke.

"From this time forth for evermore she is no child of mine," said
Lady Kingsbury the next morning to her husband, as soon as the
carriage had taken the two sinners away from the door.

"It is very wrong to say that. She is your child, and must be your
child."

"I have divorced her from my heart;--and also Lord Hampstead. How
can it be otherwise, when they are both in rebellion against me? Now
there will be this disgraceful marriage. Would you wish that I should
receive the Post Office clerk here as my son-in-law?"

"There won't be any disgraceful marriage," said the Marquis. "At
least, what I mean is, that it will be