ter his death the
title and the estates went to a distant cousin; Lady Diana Angersthorpe
was taken in hand by her aunt, the Dowager Marchioness of Carrisbrook;
and James Steadman would have had to find employment among strangers, if
Lady Diana had not pleaded so urgently with her aunt as to secure him a
somewhat insignificant post in her ladyship's establishment.

'If ever I have a house, of my own, you shall have a better place in it,
Steadman,' said Lady Diana.

She kept her word, and on her marriage with Lord Maulevrier, which
happened about eighteen months afterwards, Steadman passed into that
nobleman's service. He was a member of her ladyship's bodyguard, and his
employment seemed to consist chiefly in poking fires, cutting the leaves
of books and newspapers, superintending the footman's attendance upon
her ladyship's household pets, and conveying her sentiments to the other
servants. He was in a manner Lady Maulevrier's mouthpiece, and although
treated with a respect that verged upon awe, he was not a favourite with
the household.

And now the house in Mayfair was given over to the charge of caretakers.
All the other servants had been despatched by coach to her ladyship's
favourite retreat in Westmoreland, within a few miles of the Laureate's
home at Rydal Mount, and James Steadman was charged with the whole
responsibility of her ladyship's travelling arrangements.

Penelope had come to Southampton to wait for Ulysses, whose ship had
been due for more than a week, and whose white sails might be expected
above the horizon at any moment. James Steadman spent a good deal of his
time waiting about at the docks for the earliest news of Greene's ship,
the _Hypermnestra_; while Lady Maulevrier waited patiently in her
sitting-room at the Dolphin, whose three long French windows commanded a
full view of the High Street, with all those various distractions
afforded by the chief thoroughfare of a provincial town. Her ladyship
was provided with a large box of books, from Ebers' in Bond Street, a
basket of fancy work, and her favourite Blenheim spaniel, Lalla Rookh;
but even these sources of amusement did not prevent the involuntary
expression of weariness in occasional yawns, and frequent pacings up and
down the room, where the formal hotel furniture had a comfortless and
chilly look.

Fellside, her ladyship's place in Westmoreland, was the pleasure house
which, among all her possessions, she most valued; but it had hi