t at such an end to
all her troubles;--and what maid would not? Let them meet as soon as
may be and have it over. When he shall have placed the ring on her
finger, your battle will have been won."

Then the tailor felt that his commission was done and he might take
his leave. It had been arranged that in the event of the Countess
consenting to the proposed marriage, he should call upon Mr. Flick to
explain that it was so. Had she dissented, a short note would have
been sufficient. Had such been the case, the Solicitor-General would
have instigated the young lord to go and try what he himself could do
with the Countess and her daughter. The tailor had suggested to the
mother that she should at once make the proposition known to Lady
Anna, but the Countess felt that one other word was necessary as
her old friend left her. "Will you go back at once to Keswick, Mr.
Thwaite?"

"To-morrow morning, my lady."

"Perhaps you will not tell your son of this,--yet?"

"No, my lady. I will not tell my son of this,--yet. My son is
high-minded and stiff-necked, and of great heart. If he saw aught to
object to in this marriage, it might be that he would express himself
loudly." Then the tailor took his leave without even shaking hands
with the Countess.

The woman sat alone for the next two hours, thinking of what had
passed. There had sprung up in these days a sort of friendship
between Mrs. Bluestone and the two Miss Bluestones and the Lady
Anna, arising rather from the forlorn condition of the young lady
than from any positive choice of affection. Mrs. Bluestone was kind
and motherly. The girls were girlish and good. The father was the
Jupiter Tonans of the household,--as was of course proper,--and was
worshipped in everything. To the world at large Serjeant Bluestone
was a thundering, blundering, sanguine, energetic lawyer, whom nobody
disliked very much though he was so big and noisy. But at home
Serjeant Bluestone was all the judges of the land rolled into one.
But he was a kind-hearted man, and he had sent his wife and girls
to call upon the disconsolate Countess. The disconsolate Lady Anna
having no other friends, had found the companionship of the Bluestone
girls to be pleasant to her, and she was now with them at the
Serjeant's house in Bedford Square. Mrs. Bluestone talked of the
wrongs and coming rights of the Countess Lovel wherever she went, and
the Bluestone girls had all the case at their fingers' ends. To doubt
t