"I don't think you are quite just to her: you know I always tell you so." (Brandolin remembers the sweetness with which Dorothy Usk invites Lady Waverley season after season.) "You are a great grumbler, George. I know grumbling is a Briton's privilege, provided for and secured to him in Magna Charta; but still too great abuse of the privilege spoils life." "Nobody was ever so bothered as I am." Lord Usk regards himself invariably with compassion as an ill-used man. "You always take everything lightly; but then you aren't married, and I suppose you get _some_ of your rents?" "I have always been rather poor, but I don't mind it. So long as I needn't shut up or let the old place, and can keep my boat afloat, I don't much care about anything more. I've enough for myself." "Ah, that's just it; but when one has no end of family expenses and four great houses to keep up, and the counties looking to one for everything, and the farmers, poor devils, ruined themselves, it's another matter. I assure you if I hadn't made that sacrifice of Achnalorrie----" Lady Usk coming out of the garden-room down the steps of one of the low windows spares Brandolin the continuation of the lament. She looks pretty; mindful of her years, she holds a rose-lined sun-umbrella over her head; the lace and muslin of her breakfast-gown sweep the lawn softly; she has her two daughters with her, the Ladies Alexandra and Hermione, known as Dodo and Lilie. She welcomes Brandolin with mixed feelings, though with unmixed suavity. She is glad to see him because he amuses Usk, and is a person of wit and distinction whom everybody tries to draw to their houses; but then he upsets all her nicely-balanced combinations; there is nobody for him; he will be the "one out" when all her people so nicely arranged and paired; and, as she is aware that he is not a person to be reconciled to such isolation, he will dispossess somebody else and cause probably those very dissensions and complications from which it is always her effort to keep all her house-parties free. However, there he is; and he is accustomed to be welcomed and made much of wherever he goes. She can do no less. Brandolin makes himself charming in return, and turns pretty compliments to her and the children, which he can do honestly, for he has always liked Dorothy Usk, and the two young girls are as agreeable objects of contemplation as youth, good looks, fair skins, pretty frocks, open air, much exercise, and an indescribable air of "breeding" can make them. An English patrician child is one of the prettiest and most wholesome things on the face of the earth.