"I shall never hold up my head again! And what a horrible triumph for Anne Hautton! I am always the victim--always!" said Lady Marabout, that day two months, when the last guest at Cecil Ormsby's wedding déjeûner had rolled away from the house. "A girl who might have married anybody, Philip; she refused twenty offers this season--she did, indeed! It is heart-breaking, say what you like; you needn't laugh, it _is_. Why did I offer them Fernditton for this month, you say, if I didn't countenance the alliance? Nonsense! that is nothing to the purpose. Of course, I seemed to countenance it to a degree, for Cecil's sake, and I admire Chandos Cheveley, I confess (at least I should do, if I didn't dislike his class on principle); but, say what you like, Philip, it is the most terrible thing that could have happened for _me_. Those men _ought_ to be labelled, or muzzled, or done something with, and not be let loose on society as they are. He has a noble nature, you say. I don't say anything against his nature! She worships him? Well, I know she does. What is that to the point? He will make her happy? I am sure he will. He has the gentlest way with her possible. But how does that console _me_? Think what _you_ feel when an outsider, as you call it, beats all the favorites, upsets all your betting-books, and carries off the Doncaster Cup, and then realize, if you've any humanity in you, what _we_ feel under such a trial as this is to me! Only to think what Anne Hautton will always say!" Lady Marabout is not the only person to whom the first thought, the most dreaded ghost, the ghastliest skeleton, the direst aggravation, the sharpest dagger-thrust, under all troubles, is the remembrance of that one omnipotent Ogre--"QU'EN DIRA-T-ON?" "Laugh at her, mother," counselled Carruthers; and, _amis lecteurs_, I pass on his advice to you as the best and sole bowstring for strangling the ogre in question, which is the grimmest we have in all Bogeydom. LADY MARABOUT'S TROUBLES; OR, THE WORRIES OF A CHAPERONE. IN THREE SEASONS. SEASON THE THIRD.--THE CLIMAX. "My dear Philip, the most unfortunate thing has happened," said Lady Marabout, one morning; "really the greatest contretemps that could have occurred. I suppose I never _am_ to be quiet!" "What's the row _now_, madre carissima?" asked her son. "It is no row, but it is an annoyance. You have heard me speak of my poor dear friend Mrs. Montolieu; you know she married unhappily, poor thing, to a dreadful creature, something in a West India regiment--nobody at all. It is very odd, and it is very wrong, and there must be a great mistake somewhere, but certainly most marriages _are_ unhappy."