for you too much to cause you any pain. Assure me with your own
lips that you wish our engagement to be at an end, and I shall release
you without another word."

The family were in town, and Mary sent her letter by a trusty hand. The
countess read it with huge satisfaction, and, re-sealing it, gave it
herself into her son's hands. It promised a happy solution of the
problem. In imagination, she had all the night been listening to a
vulgar breach of promise case. She herself had been submitted to a most
annoying cross-examination by a pert barrister. Her son's assumption of
the name of Robinson had been misunderstood and severely commented upon
by the judge. A sympathetic jury had awarded thumping damages, and for
the next six months the family title would be a peg on which music-hall
singers and comic journalists would hang their ribald jokes. Lord C---
read the letter, flushed, and dutifully handed it back to his mother. She
made pretence to read it as for the first time, and counselled him to
accord the interview.

"I am so glad," she said, "that the girl is taking the matter sensibly.
We must really do something for her in the future, when everything is
settled. Let her ask for me, and then the servants will fancy she's a
lady's maid or something of that sort, come after a place, and won't
talk."

So that evening Mary Sewell, addressed by the butler as "young woman,"
was ushered into the small drawing-room that connects the library of No.
--- Grosvenor Square with the other reception rooms. The countess, now
all amiability, rose to meet her.

"My son will be here in a moment," she explained, "he has informed me of
the purport of your letter. Believe me, my dear Miss Sewell, no one can
regret his thoughtless conduct more than I do. But young men will be
young men, and they do not stop to reflect that what may be a joke to
them may be taken quite seriously by others."

"I don't regard the matter as a joke, my lady," replied Mary somewhat
curtly.

"Of course not, my dear," added the countess, "that's what I'm saying. It
was very wrong of him altogether. But with your pretty face, you will
not, I am sure, have long to wait for a husband; we must see what we can
do for you."

The countess certainly lacked tact; it must have handicapped her
exceedingly.

"Thank you," answered the girl, "but I prefer to choose my own."

Fortunately--or the interview might have ended in another quarrel--the
cause