Then coming to a sudden stop before Lady Judith, and giggling shyly, she exclaimed, "Lord, how I should love a room just like this, your la'ship! It has such a sweet pretty murderous kind of an air, just like Bluebeard's chamber, where he kept his wives' heads. I shall ask papa to let me furnish a room the same pattern, so I shall." "Pray do, Mrs. Asterley. The frame will charmingly suit the picture. You have a vapourish artistic air which would be admirably set off by antique furniture." "My dear Belle, Mr. Topsparkle's old Venetian tapestry is both priceless and unique," said her husband reprovingly. "What, that old carpet-work on the walls? I thought they had that for cheapness." "My sweetest love, you have no more manners than a pig," said Asterley, but with an indulgent smile at his buxom wife's low-bred simplicity which was gall and wormwood to Lady Polwhele. "O, but when one is blest with a wealthy father it is so natural to suppose he can get one anything one fancies by paying for it. I am sure I should have thought as much if my poor dear papa had not been a pauper," said Lady Judith, with languid good-nature. "You must go to Canons or Stowe, my dear Mrs. Asterley, and look about you. You will see some very pretty ideas for rooms, which will put you in the right way of furnishing your new house." "But we have not taken a house yet. We are in a lodging over a tallow-chandler's in the Haymarket. It is dreadful on melting days. Yet they say Mr. Addison wrote his poem on Blenheim next door. I used to think Blenheim was a battle, but Teddie says 'tis a poem." "My sweet child, if you were to talk a little less and listen a little more, there might be some hope of your arriving at an understanding of many things that are now dark to you," said Lady Polwhele severely; and then she peered about in the great dusky apartment, and suddenly descried Lord Lavendale sitting a little way behind Lady Judith, and quite in shadow. "As I live, it is Lavendale!" she cried; "the very man I have been pining to see these centuries. Come and sit by me on this couch, you dear pretty fellow, and tell me where you have hidden yourself since you came from the East." "In the dismal seclusion of my father's favourite estate, and the only remnant of his property which his son's follies have left intact," answered Lavendale gravely. "Did not I tell you so, Asterley?" exclaimed her ladyship; "there is no help for it, you see. He must marry an heiress. Did not I say so, Asterley? You and I must find him an heiress." "Forgive me, Lady Polwhele, if I submit that although you and my friend Asterley are doubtless admirable caterers, I would rather be my own purveyor." "O, but heiresses are almost as extinct as the dodo. An only child of wealthy parents is the veritable black swan. And Asterley is such a diplomatist with women."