kelville magnate's heartless character. In fact, if
one-half of what was written, telegraphed, and printed about Rufus Van
Torp on both sides of the Atlantic during the next fortnight was to be
believed, he had no character at all.

To all this he answered nothing, and he did not take the trouble to
allude to the matter in the few letters he wrote to his acquaintances.
Day after day numbers of marked papers were carefully ironed and laid
on the breakfast-table, after having been read and commented on in the
servants' hall. The butler began to look askance at him, Mrs. Dubbs,
the housekeeper, talked gloomily of giving warning, and the footmen
gossiped with the stable hands; but the men all decided that it was
not derogatory to their dignity to remain in the service of a master
who was soon to be exhibited in the divorce court beside such a 'real
lady' as Lord Creedmore's daughter; the housemaids agreed in this
view, and the housekeeper consulted Miss More. For Mrs. Dubbs was an
imposing person, morally and physically, and had a character to lose;
and though the place was a very good one for her old age, because the
master only spent six weeks or two months at Oxley Paddox each year,
and never found fault, yet Mrs. Dubbs was not going to have her name
associated with that of a gentleman who blew up underground works and
took Solomon's view of the domestic affections. She came of very good
people in the north; one of her brothers was a minister, and the other
was an assistant steward on a large Scotch estate.

Miss More's quiet serenity was not at all disturbed by what was
happening, for it could hardly be supposed that she was ignorant of
the general attack on Mr. Van Torp, though he did not leave the papers
lying about, where little Ida's quick eyes might fall on a marked
passage. The housekeeper waited for an occasion when Mr. Van Torp
had taken the child for a drive, as he often did, and Miss More was
established in her favourite corner of the garden, just out of sight
of the house. Mrs. Dubbs first exposed the situation, then expressed
a strong opinion as to her own respectability, and finally asked Miss
More's advice.

Miss More listened attentively, and waited till her large and sleek
interlocutor had absolutely nothing more to say. Then she spoke.

'Mrs. Dubbs,' she said, 'do you consider me a respectable young
woman?'

'Oh, Miss More!' cried the housekeeper. 'You! Indeed, I'd put my hand
into the fire for yo