"_Au revoir, cher garcon_!" replied her ladyship; and she followed her visitor out of the conservatory into the drawing-room, and rang the bell for the servant in attendance to show him out. "It wouldn't have been a bad slice of luck to have married her and had this place. But, good heavens, what an old hag!" "I should have been an idiot to marry him," said her ladyship, as soon as she was alone. "He is very handsome and gentlemanly and nice; but he would have ruined me, I am sure of that. Ah well, the sooner I find him someone else with a good income the better. Let him squander that. Why--" She stopped short. "How stupid of me! The very thing! Lady Anna Maria Morton has just come in for her brother's estate." Lady Littletown stood thinking. "She is fifty if she is a day, perhaps fifty-five, and as tremulous as Isabella Dymcox. But what of that? Dear Anna Maria! I have not called upon her for a fortnight. How wrong! I shall be obliged to have a little _partie carree_ to dinner. Let me see--Lady Anna Maria, Arthur, myself, and--dear, dear--dear, dear me! Who shall I have that is not stupid enough to spoil sport?" She walked about in a fidgety manner, and then picked up her card-basket, raised the square gold eyeglass, and turned the cards over in an impatient manner. "Not one--not one!" she cried reluctantly. "Never mind; she shall come to a _tete-a-tete_ dinner, and Arthur shall drop in by accident, and stop. Dear boy, how I do toil and slave on his behalf! But stay," she added, after a pause; "shall I wait and get the Dymcox business over first? No; what matters? I am diplomat enough to carry on both at once; and, by-the-bye, I must not let that little military boy slip through my fingers, for he really is a prize. Taken with Marie; but that won't do," she continued. "Moorpark must have her, and I dare say somebody will turn up." She took her seat at the table then, and began to write a tiny note upon delicately-scented paper. The first words after the date were: "My dearest Anna Maria," and she ended with: "Your very affectionate friend." Volume 2, Chapter XII. A MATTER-OF-FACT MATCH. Dick Millet received a note in his uncle's crabbed hand one morning at Hampton Court, obtained leave, and hurried up to town, calling at Grosvenor Square to hear the last news about Gertrude, but finding none. On arriving at Wimpole Street, Vidler opened the door to the visitor, and smiled as he did so in rather a peculiar way. "Can I speak to my uncle?" said Dick importantly. And he was shown up into the drawing-room, which seemed more gloomy now, lit as it was by four wax-candles, which were lost, as it were, in a great mist of old-time air, that had been shut up in that room till it had grown into a faded and yellow atmosphere carefully preserved from the bleaching properties of the sun.