in, and seated herself without a word on the
hassock at her grandmother's feet. Lady Maulevrier passed her hand
caressingly over the girl's soft brown hair, without looking up from her
book.

'You are a late visitor,' she said; 'why did you not come to me after
breakfast?'

'It was such a lovely morning, we went straight from the breakfast table
to the garden; I did not think you wanted me.'

'I did not want you; but I am always glad to see my pet. What were you
doing in the garden all the morning? I did not hear you playing tennis.'

Lady Maulevrier had already interrogated the German governess upon this
very subject, but she had her own reasons for wishing to hear Lesbia's
account.

'No, it was too warm for tennis. Fraeulein and I sat and worked, and Mr.
Hammond read to us.'

'What did he read?'

'Heine's ballads. He reads German beautifully.

'Indeed! I daresay he was at school in Germany. There are cheap schools
there to which middle-class people send their boys.'

This was like a thrust from a rusty knife.

'Mr. Hammond was at Oxford,' Lesbia said, reproachfully; and then, after
a longish pause, she clasped her hands upon the arm of Lady Maulevrier's
chair, and said, in a pleading voice, 'Grandmother, Mr. Hammond has
asked me to marry him.'

'Indeed! Only that? And pray, did he tell you what are his means of
maintaining Lord Maulevrier's sister in the position to which her birth
entitles her?' inquired the dowager, with crushing calmness.

'He is not rich; indeed, I believe, he is poor; but he is brave and
clever, and he is full of confidence in his power to conquer fortune.'

'No doubt; that is your true adventurer's style. He confides implicitly
in his own talents, and in somebody else's banker. Mr. Hammond would
make a tremendous figure in the world, I daresay, and while he was
making it your brother would have to keep him. Well, my dear Lesbia, I
hope you gave this gentleman the answer his insolence deserved; or that
you did better, and referred him to me. I should be glad to give him my
opinion of his conduct--a person admitted to this house as your
brother's hanger-on--tolerated only on your brother's account; such a
person, nameless, penniless, friendless (except for Maulevrier's too
facile patronage), to dare to lift his eyes to my granddaughter! It is
ineffable insolence!'

Lesbia crouched by her grandmother's chair, her face hidden from Lady
Maulevrier's falcon eye. Every word uttered by