are
childish!"

"Yes, I know he's a very decent little chap, Father," said Lady Eva.
"It's not that at all."

"I should be gratified, then, to hear what, in your opinion, it is."

"Well, do you think I could be happy with him?"

Lady Kimbuck gave tongue. She was Lord Evenwood's sister. She spent a
very happy widowhood interfering in the affairs of the various branches
of her family.

"We're not asking you to be happy. You have such odd ideas of happiness.
Your idea of happiness is to be married to your cousin Gerry, whose only
visible means of support, so far as I can gather, is the four hundred
a year which he draws as a member for a constituency which has every
intention of throwing him out at the next election."

Lady Eva blushed. Lady Kimbuck's faculty for nosing out the secrets of
her family had made her justly disliked from the Hebrides to Southern
Cornwall.

"Young O'Rion is not to be thought of," said Lord Evenwood firmly. "Not
for an instant. Apart from anything else, his politics are all
wrong. Moreover, you are engaged to this Mr. Bleke. It is a sacred
responsibility not lightly to be evaded. You can not pledge your
word one day to enter upon the most solemn contract known to--ah--the
civilized world, and break it the next. It is not fair to the man. It is
not fair to me. You know that all I live for is to see you comfortably
settled. If I could myself do anything for you, the matter would be
different. But these abominable land-taxes and Blowick--especially
Blowick--no, no, it's out of the question. You will be very sorry if you
do anything foolish. I can assure you that Roland Blekes are not to be
found--ah--on every bush. Men are extremely shy of marrying nowadays."

"Especially," said Lady Kimbuck, "into a family like ours. What with
Blowick's scandal, and that shocking business of your grandfather
and the circus-woman, to say nothing of your poor father's trouble in
'85----"

"Thank you, Sophia," interrupted Lord Evenwood, hurriedly. "It is
unnecessary to go into all that now. Suffice it that there are adequate
reasons, apart from all moral obligations, why Eva should not break her
word to Mr. Bleke."

Lady Kimbuck's encyclopedic grip of the family annals was a source of
the utmost discomfort to her relatives. It was known that more than one
firm of publishers had made her tempting offers for her reminiscences,
and the family looked on like nervous spectators at a battle while
Cupidity foug