rt of upper servant, because of baby. But he shall
know what I think and feel."

"If I were you I would forget it."

"How can I forget it? Nothing that I can do pleases him. He is civil
and kind to you because he is not your master; but you don't know
what things he says to me. Am I to tell Colonel Osborne not to come?
Heavens and earth! How should I ever hold up my head again if I were
driven to do that? He will be here to-day I have no doubt; and Louis
will sit there below in the library, and hear his step, and will not
come up."

"Tell Richard to say you are not at home."

"Yes; and everybody will understand why. And for what am I to deny
myself in that way to the best and oldest friend I have? If any such
orders are to be given, let him give them and then see what will come
of it."

Mrs. Trevelyan had described Colonel Osborne truly as far as words
went, in saying that he had known her since she was a baby, and that
he was an older man than her father. Colonel Osborne's age exceeded
her father's by about a month, and as he was now past fifty, he might
be considered perhaps, in that respect, to be a safe friend for a
young married woman. But he was in every respect a man very different
from Sir Marmaduke. Sir Marmaduke, blessed and at the same time
burdened as he was with a wife and eight daughters, and condemned as
he had been to pass a large portion of his life within the tropics,
had become at fifty what many people call quite a middle-aged man.
That is to say, he was one from whom the effervescence and elasticity
and salt of youth had altogether passed away. He was fat and slow,
thinking much of his wife and eight daughters, thinking much also of
his dinner. Now Colonel Osborne was a bachelor, with no burdens but
those imposed upon him by his position as a member of Parliament,--a
man of fortune to whom the world had been very easy. It was not
therefore said so decidedly of him as of Sir Marmaduke, that he
was a middle-aged man, although he had probably already lived more
than two-thirds of his life. And he was a good-looking man of his
age, bald indeed at the top of his head, and with a considerable
sprinkling of grey hair through his bushy beard; but upright in his
carriage, active, and quick in his step, who dressed well, and was
clearly determined to make the most he could of what remained to him
of the advantages of youth. Colonel Osborne was always so dressed
that no one ever observed the nature of h