hat the Serjeant would succeed, or to doubt that the success of the
Countess and her daughter would have had any other source than the
Serjeant's eloquence and the Serjeant's zeal, would have been heresy
in Bedford Square. The grand idea that young Jack Bluestone, who was
up at Brasenose, should marry the Lady Anna, had occurred only to the
mother.

Lady Anna was away with her friends as the Countess sat brooding over
the new hopes that had been opened to her. At first, she could not
tear her mind away from the position which she herself would occupy
as soon as her daughter should have been married and taken away
from her. The young Earl would not want his mother-in-law,--a
mother-in-law who had spent the best years of her life in the society
of a tailor. And the daughter, who would still be young enough to
begin a new life in a new sphere, would no longer want her mother to
help her. As regarded herself, the Countess was aware that the life
she had led so long, and the condition of agonizing struggling to
which she had been brought, had unfitted her for smiling, happy,
prosperous, aristocratic luxury. There was but one joy left for her,
and that was to be the joy of success. When that cup should have been
drained, there would be nothing left to her. She would have her rank,
of course,--and money enough to support it. She no longer feared that
any one would do her material injury. Her daughter's husband no doubt
would see that she had a fitting home, with all the appanages and
paraphernalia suited to a dowager Countess. But who would share her
home with her, and where should she find her friends? Even now the
two Miss Bluestones were more to her daughter than she was. When
she should be established in her new luxurious home, with servants
calling her my lady, with none to contradict her right, she would no
longer be enabled to sit late into the night discussing matters with
her friend the tailor. As regarded herself, it would have been better
for her, perhaps, if the fight had been carried on.

But the fight had been, not for herself, but for her child; and the
victory for her girl would have been won by her own perseverance.
Her whole life had been devoted to establishing the rights of her
daughter, and it should be so devoted to the end. It had been her
great resolve that the world should acknowledge the rank of her girl,
and now it would be acknowledged. Not only would she become the
Countess Lovel by marriage, but