He bent and kissed her face. Maude, in some restlessness, as it seemed, withdrew to her own corner of the carriage and cried softly; and Lord Hartledon let down the glass again to look back after Thomas Carr and his portmanteau in the starlight. The only perfectly satisfied person was the countess-dowager. All the little annoying hindrances went for nothing now that the desired end was accomplished, and she was in high feather when she bade adieu to the amiable young clergyman, who had to depart that night for his curacy, ten miles away, to be in readiness for the morrow's services. "If you please, my lady, Captain Kirton has been asking for you once or twice," said Hedges, entering the dowager's private sitting-room. "Then Captain Kirton must ask," retorted the dowager, who was sitting down to her letters, which she had left unopened since their arrival in the morning, in her anxiety for other interests. "Hedges, I should like some supper: I had only a scrambling sort of dinner. You can bring it up here. Something nice; and a bottle of champagne." Hedges withdrew with the order, and Lady Kirton applied herself to her letters. The first she opened was from the daughter who had married the French count. It told a pitiful tale of distress, and humbly craved to be permitted to come over on a fortnight's visit, she and her two sickly children, "for a little change." "I dare say!" emphatically cried the dowager. "What next? No, thank you, my lady; now that I have at least a firm footing in this house--as that blessed parson said--I am not going to risk it by filling it with every bothering child I possess. Bob departs as soon as his leg's well. Why what's this?" She had come upon a concluding line as she was returning the letter to the envelope. "P.S. If I don't hear from you _very_ decisively to the contrary, I shall come, and trust to your good nature to forgive it. I want to see Bob." "Oh, that's it, is it!" said the dowager. "She means to come, whether I will or no. That girl always had enough impudence for a dozen." Drawing a sheet of paper out of her desk, she wrote a few rapid lines. "Dear Jane, "For _mercy's_ sake keep those _poor_ children and yourself _away_! We have had an _aweful infectious fever_ rageing in the place, which it was thought to be _cured_, but it's on the break _out_ again-several _deaths_, Hartledon and Maude (_married_ of course) have gone out of its reach and I'm thinking of it if _Bob's_ leg which is _better_ permits. You'd not like I dare say to see the children in a _coffin apiece_ and yourself in a _third_, as might be the end. _Small-pox_ is raging at _Garchester_ a neighbouring town, that _will_ be awful if it gets to _us_ and I _hear_ it's on the _road_ and with kind love _believe_ me your affectionate_ "MOTHER.