"Ah, she'll have worse things than those to contend against and encounter. You were lucky enough to save her from a fractured skull; I suppose we shall see you doing the 'sweet-little-cherub' business, and watching over her generally, henceforth." "You seem to forget that Lady Mitford has a husband, Lord Dollamore." "Not for an instant, my good fellow. But so has--well, Mrs. Hammond--and so have lots of women; but then the husbands are generally engaged in taking care of somebody else. Well, well, to think that _you_ should become a sheep-dog,--you whose whole early life was spent in worrying the lambs!" "Whose whole _early_ life--that's it! _Quand le diable est vieux il se fait ermite!_" "Ye-es; but if I were the husband of a very pretty young wife, I doubt whether I should particularly like you being her father confessor." "You need not alarm yourself, my lord; I'm not going in for the position." "_Qui a bu, boira_, my dear Alsager. I distrust sudden conversions, and have no great reliance on sheep-dogs whose fangs are scarcely cleared of wool." Laurence might have replied somewhat sharply to this, had he heard it; but he was off on his way to the coffee-room to his luncheon, which had been announced by the waiter; that finished, he started off for Eaton Place. He had sufficient matter for reflection on his walk. This preposterous story which had crept into the papers would of course form a splendid subject of gossip for all those who had nothing better to do than to talk about such things. There was already a certain amount of interest attaching to the Mitfords from the fact of Sir Charles having inherited the baronetcy in a singular and unlooked-for manner, and from his wife's having had the audacity--although sprung from an unknown family--to have a beautiful face and agreeable manners. For this presumption Alsager felt that a terrible retribution was in store for her, poor child, when the regular season came on, and the dowagers brought up their saleable daughters to the market. Then the notion that a common country parson's daughter had been beforehand with them, and had carried off an unexceptionable _parti_ before he had been regularly advertised as ready for stalking, would drive these old ladies to a pitch of rankling and venomous despair which would find vent in such taunts, hints, insinuations, and open lies as are only learnt in the great finishing-school of London society. Lady Mitford's beauty, style, and position were in themselves quite sufficient to render her an object of dislike to nine-tenths of the other women in society, who would eagerly search for something against her, however slight it might be. Had not that unfortunate accident and its result given them this "something"? Laurence had been too long amongst the ranks of _nous autres_ not to recognize the meaning of the grins and winks which went round the assembled circle of club-men when the