It cost Lady Jane something to call herself the relation of Mr. Tredgold’s daughter, and it was intended that the statement should be received with gratitude; but this Stella, Lady Somers, neither felt nor affected. She was quite well aware that she had now no need of Lady Jane. She was herself an extremely popular person wherever she went, of that there could be no doubt--she had proved it over and over again in the seven years of her humiliation. Popular at Government House, popular at every station, wherever half-a-dozen people were assembled together. And now she was rich. What need she care for anyone, or for any point of honour, or the opinion of the county even, much less of a place like Sliplin? Lady Jane could no longer either make her or mar her. She was perfectly able to stand by herself. “It is very kind of you,” she said, “to say that, though it doesn’t come very well after the other. Anyhow, I’m just as I’ve been bred, as you say, though I have the honour to be Charlie’s wife. Lady Jane wants to see Job; I wish you’d go and fetch him. I suppose Kate has not been able to get that little sprite to come. You need not try,” said Stella calmly, when Somers had left the room, “to turn Charlie against me, Lady Jane. He is a fool in some things, but he knows on which side his bread is buttered. If I have fifty thousand a year and he not half as many farthings, you may believe he will think twice before he goes against me. I am very proud to be your relation, of course, but it hasn’t a money value, or anything that is of the first importance to us. Kate won’t be the better, but the worse, for any interference. I have my own ways of thinking, and I shall do what I think right.” “Oh, here is the dear baby at last!” cried Lady Jane, accomplishing her retreat, though routed horse and foot, behind the large infant, looking rather bigger than the slim ayah who carried her, who now came triumphantly into the room, waving in her hand the rather alarming weapon of a big coral, and with the true air of Stella’s child in Stella’s house. A baby is a very good thing to cover a social defeat, and this one was so entirely satisfactory in every particular that the visitor had nothing to do but admire and applaud. “What a specimen for India,” she cried; but this was before Job made his remarkable entrance in the dimness of the twilight, which had begun by this time to veil the afternoon light. CHAPTER XLIV. “Do away, me not do wid you, me fader’s boy,” said little Job, as Katherine exerted her persuasions to bring him downstairs. “That is quite true, Job; but father has not come back yet. Come downstairs with me, and we shall see him come back.”