There was, of course, a great outcry in the county about this almost runaway marriage. It was not dignified for Lady Markland, people said; but there were some good-natured souls who said they did not wonder, for that a widow's wedding was not a pretty spectacle like a young girl's, and of course there were always embarrassments, especially with a child so old as Geoff. What could his mother have done with him, had he been present at the wedding, and he must have been present at the wedding, if it had been performed in the ordinary way. Poor little Geoff! If only the new husband would be good to him, everybody said. CHAPTER XXXVIII. "Of course it was perfectly right. No one could say that I was in any way infatuated about Lady Markland, never from the first: but I quite approve of that. Why should she call herself Mrs. Theodore Warrender, when she has the title of a viscountess? If it had been a trumpery little baronetcy," said Minnie, strong in her new honours, "that would have been quite a different matter; but why should one give up one's precedency, and all that? I should not at all like to have Mrs. Wilberforce, for instance, or any other person of her class, walk out of a room before me--now." "Nor me, I suppose," Mrs. Warrender said, with a smile. "Oh, you! that is different of course," said the Hon. Mrs. Eustace Thynne; but though she was good enough to say this, it was very evident that even for her mother Minnie had no idea of waiving her rights. "When a thing is understood it is so much easier," she added, "every one must see that. Besides it was not her fault," said Minnie triumphantly, "that her first husband died." "It was her fault that she married again, surely." "Oh, what do you know about it, Chatty? An unmarried girl can't really have any experience on that subject. Well, to be sure it was her own doing marrying again: but a lady of any rank _never_ gives up her title on marrying a commoner. A baronet's wife, as I say,--but then a baronet is only a commoner himself." "You seem to have thoroughly studied the subject, Minnie." "Yes, I have studied it; marrying into a noble family naturally changes one's ideas. And the Thynnes are very particular. You should have seen my mother-in-law arranging the dinner-party she asked to meet us. _I_ went first of course as the bride, but there was Lady Highcourt and Lady Grandmaison, both countesses, and the creation within twenty years of each other. Eustace said nobody but his mother could have recollected without looking it up that the Grandmaisons date from 1425 and the Highcourts only from 1450--not the very oldest nobility either of them," said Minnie, with a grand air. "The Thynnebroods date from 1395." "But then," said Mrs. Warrender, much amused, shooting a bow at a venture, "their descent counts in the female line."