“Oh Markham! and you drive about in hansoms, and smoke cigars, all day.” “Well, my dear, what would you have me do? Keep on trudging through the mud, which would waste all my time; or get on the knife-board of an omnibus? Well, these are the only alternatives. The omnibuses have their recommendation--they are fun; but after a while, society in that development palls upon the intelligent observer. What do you want me to do, Fan? Come, I have a deal on my mind; but to please you, and to make you hold your tongue, if there is anything I can do, I will try.” “You can do everything, Markham. Warn him that he is wasting his money--that he is spending what belongs to the old people--that he is making himself wretched. Oh, don’t laugh, Markham! Oh, if I were in your place! I know what I should do--I would get him to go home, instead of going to--those places.” “Which places, Fan?” “Oh,” cried the girl, exasperated to tears, “how can I tell?--the places you know--the places you have taken him to, Markham--places where, if the poor General knew it, or Mrs Gaunt----” “There you are making a mistake, little Fan. The good people would think their son was in very fine company. If he tells them the names of the persons he meets, they will think----” “Then you know they will think wrong, Markham!” she cried, almost with violence, keeping herself with a most strenuous effort from an outburst of indignant weeping. He did not reply at once; and she thought he was about to consider the question on its merits, and endeavour to find out what he could do. But she was undeceived when he spoke. “What day did you say, Fan, the funeral was to be?” he asked, with the air of a man who has escaped from an unwelcome intrusion to the real subject of his thoughts. Sir Thomas found her alone, flushed and miserable, drying her tears with a feverish little angry hand. She was very much alone during these days, when Lady Markham was so often with Nelly Winterbourn. Sir Thomas was pleased to find her, having also an object of his own. He soothed her, when he saw that she had been crying. “Never mind me,” he said; “but you must not let other people see that you are feeling it so much: for you cannot be supposed to take any particular interest in Winterbourn: and people will immediately suppose that you and your mother are troubled about the changes that must take place in the house.” “I was not thinking at all of Mrs Winterbourn,” cried Frances, with indignation. “No, my dear; I knew you could not be. Don’t let any one but me see you crying. Lady Markham will feel the marriage dreadfully, I know. But now is our time for our grand _coup_.” “What grand _coup_?” the girl said, with an astonished look.