This time she raised her eyes, and they met his, not with their former expression, but full of defiance, and of an insolent meaning, so that after a moment he turned away his gaze, and with a seeming struggle looked abashed and ashamed. “The first change I will ask you to make in that house,” said Lady Lendrick, who had noticed this by-play, “if ever you become its inmates, will be to dismiss that tiresome old hanger-on, Mr. Haire. I abhor him.” “My first reform will be in the sherry,--to get rid of that vile sugary compound of horrid nastiness he gives you After soup. The next will be the long-tailed black coach-horses. I don't think a man need celebrate his own funeral every time he goes out for a drive.” “Haire,” resumed Lady Lendrick, in a tone of severity, meant, perhaps, to repress all banter on a serious subject,--“Haire not only supplies food to his vanity, but stimulates his conceit by little daily stories of what the world says of him. I wish he would listen to _me_ on that subject,--I wish he would take _my_ version of his place in popular estimation.” “I opine that the granddaughter should be got rid of,” said the Colonel. “She is a fool,--only a fool,” said Lady Lendrick. “I don't think her a fool,” said Mrs. Sewell, slowly. “I don't exactly mean so much; but that she has no knowledge of life, and knows nothing whatever of the position she is placed in, nor how to profit by it.” “I'd not even go that far,” said Mrs. Sewell, in the same quiet tone. “Don't pay too much attention to _that_,” said the Colonel to his mother. “It's one of her ways always to see something in every one that nobody else has discovered.” “I made that mistake once too often for my own welfare,” said she, in a voice only audible to his ear. “She tells me, mother, that she made that same mistake once too often for her own welfare; which being interpreted, means in taking me for her husband,--a civil speech to make a man in presence of his mother.” “I begin to think that politeness is not the quality any of us are eager about,” said Lady Lendrick; “and I must say I am not at all sorry that the drive is over.” “If I had been permitted to smoke, you'd not have been distressed by any conversational excesses on my part,” said the Colonel. “I shall know better another time, Dudley; and possibly-it would be as well to be suffocated with tobacco as half-choked with anger. Thank heaven we are at the door!” “May I take your horses as far as the Club?” asked Sewell, as he handed her out. “Yes, but not to wait. You kept them on Tuesday night till past four o'clock.” “On second thought, I'll walk,” said he, turning away. “Good-night;” and leaving his wife to be assisted down the steps by the footman, he lighted his cigar, and walked away. CHAPTER XXIII. A VERY HUMBLE DWELLING