"Yes! try and not be dull of understanding--nothing tries me so severely as that. My lady! I mean, of course, the Countess of Linleigh. What do you think of her, Earle?" "I think she is very kind, very beautiful, very stately, and very charming." "I agree with you; but do you not think that she is rather sentimental?" "I hardly know. Why, Doris?" "She has a fashion of dropping into my dressing-room at all hours, of taking this long hair of mine into her hands, and looking as though she would fain kiss it, of kissing my face, and talking about you." "That seems very natural, Doris, and very kind," he said. "When she talks about you, Earle, the tears come into her eyes, and she is so eloquent about love. Do you know what I fancy sometimes?" "No," he replied, "I do not." "You need not look so strangely at me; but I do fancy at times that when she was young, perhaps she loved some one like me, who is dead. What do you think, Earle?" "It is very possible, darling. I should be so kind to her, Doris, were I in your place." "I am kind, I never interfere; I let her do just as she likes with me. I am sure, Earle, it is not possible to be any kinder than that." CHAPTER LVII. THE YEARNINGS OF A MOTHER'S HEART. The appointment was secured. It was hardly probable that the Earl of Linleigh should ask anything from the government and be refused. He was the rising man of the day, and the government was anxious for his support. He had great influence, and it was all needed. When, therefore, he made a special application for this choice bit of patronage, it was agreed on all sides that it would be most unwise to refuse it. Earle was made perfectly happy. The income of eight hundred pounds a year did not seem such a great or wonderful thing to him as the fact that he was a public man, that his footing was firmly established, and that every day brought him nearer to Doris. In his simplicity, he often wondered how it was that little paragraphs continually appeared in the leading papers of the day about him. One time it was to the effect that it was not generally known that Earle Moray, Esq., recently appointed to the royal commission service, was the poet with whose last work all England was delighted. Again, that Earle Moray, Esq., the poet, intended to contest the borough of Anderley. He found himself continually mentioned as one of the leading men of the day, one to whom the eyes of the country turned with hope. Earle could not imagine how it was, and in his perplexity he spoke of it to Lord Linleigh. "If I did not know that it was impossible," he said, "I should imagine some one was always sending little paragraphs to the newspapers about me."