"I will take the responsibility on myself," I said; "and believe me, I would not urge it if I was not perfectly certain that I was doing what is right. Remember how many times I have blindly followed your advice. I only ask you this once to follow mine, and secure your own happiness." The temptation was too strong, and Grandon yielded; but it was with a reluctant, doubtful step that he approached the door he had not this year ventured to enter. It was opened by Drippings, and I took the opportunity of having a little private conversation with him in the hall, in the course of which it was arranged that he should exchange her ladyship's service for mine, and accompany me to America: the truth is, I proposed settling him there, and making him send for his wife and family. He knew too much of Lady Broadhem's affairs to be at all a desirable domestic either to herself or to her friends in this country. "Lady Broadhem is in her own sitting-room, my lord," said Drippings; "shall I show your lordship up to her?" "No; if there is nobody in the drawing-room, take us there first. Now, Grandon, I will send for you when you are wanted; keep quiet, and don't get impatient;" and I left him and knocked at Lady Broadhem's door. The events of the last twenty-four hours had told upon her, and the old wrinkles had come back, with several new ones. She was at that critical age when a great grief or anxiety can make an elderly person antiquated in a night--just as hair will turn grey in a few hours. She put out her hand without speaking, but with an expression of resignation which seemed to say, "I acknowledge myself beaten; be a brute or anything else you like; trample upon me, pray--I am down without the possibility of retaliating, but you will get very little sport out of me; badger me if you like, I don't mean to show fight." All this I read in her face as plainly as if she had said it; and I thought this a moment when generosity on the part of the victor will prove one to be a true strategist; and no one will appreciate it more than Lady Broadhem. With great gentleness, and without allowing a shade of self-satisfaction to cross my face or to penetrate my tones, I told her how I had propitiated Bodwinkle, banished Chundango, provided for Drippings, and succeeded at last in placing her affairs generally on a sound footing. "Your genius will never be appreciated by the world, Frank," she said, smiling half ironically, half sadly. "I am quite aware of that," I replied; "nor will this record of my experiences in it--except by you and one or two others who know how true it is. And now, Lady Broadhem, you know the wish which is nearest my heart, but which I don't venture to put in words,"--and I held out my hand. "Yes," she said--and I saw the slender nostril dilate with the effort it cost her to yield the point upon which she had been so long inflexible--"you want my consent to Ursula's marriage with Grandon. I give it."