. But it was not thus that he had arranged
it,--for he had made his arrangements. "There would be no feeling of
that kind, I am sure," he said. And then he was silent. How was he to
deploy himself on the ground before him so as to make the strategy
which he had prepared answer the occasion of the day? "Lady Eustace,"
he said, "I don't know what your views of life may be."

"I have a child, you know, to bring up."

"Ah, yes;--that gives a great interest, of course."

"He will inherit a very large fortune, Lord Fawn;--too large, I fear,
to be of service to a youth of one-and-twenty; and I must endeavour
to fit him for the possession of it. That is,--and always must be,
the chief object of my existence." Then she felt that she had said
too much. He was just the man who would be fool enough to believe
her. "Not but what it is hard to do it. A mother can of course devote
herself to her child;--but when a portion of the devotion must be
given to the preservation of material interests there is less of
tenderness in it. Don't you think so?"

"No doubt," said Lord Fawn;--"no doubt." But he had not followed
her, and was still thinking of his own strategy. "It's a comfort, of
course, to know that one's child is provided for."

"Oh, yes;--but they tell me the poor little dear will have forty
thousand a year when he's of age; and when I look at him in his
little bed, and press him in my arms, and think of all that money, I
almost wish that his father had been a poor plain gentleman." Then
the handkerchief was put to her eyes, and Lord Fawn had a moment in
which to collect himself.

"Ah!--I myself am a poor man;--for my rank I mean."

"A man with your position, Lord Fawn, and your talents and genius for
business, can never be poor."

"My father's property was all Irish, you know."

"Was it indeed?"

"And he was an Irish peer, till Lord Melbourne gave him an English
peerage."

"An Irish peer, was he?" Lizzie understood nothing of this, but
presumed that an Irish peer was a peer who had not sufficient money
to live upon. Lord Fawn, however, was endeavouring to describe his
own history in as few words as possible.

"He was then made Lord Fawn of Richmond, in the peerage of the United
Kingdom. Fawn Court, you know, belonged to my mother's father before
my mother's marriage. The property in Ireland is still mine, but
there's no place on it."

"Indeed!"

"There was a house, but my father allowed it to tumble down. It's i