farmer's Christmas dance, where she could scandalise all the sober domestic virtue of the parish and make every buxom farmer's lass wild with jealousy by her extravagant flirtations with the young men, delighted Miss Adelaide beyond measure. This free young lady was most to the Captain's taste of all the four, but her mother felt disappointed at the preference. It not only left the eldest girl out in the cold, but made Mrs. Codling's task more dangerous. Adela had no prudence, and unripe plans might become known to Lady Harriet through her folly. Besides, her ladyship would probably be harder to persuade into accepting Adela as a daughter-in-law than any of the other three. So thought the prudent, anxious mother; but she was too wise to interfere. A risk must be taken in any case, and she resolved to let the captain have his way, bracing herself to greater vigilance and higher flights of matrimonial diplomacy than ever. And she found a much more efficient ally in the Captain than she had expected. Men, in her opinion, were never prudent in love matters, but this man was as cautious as a diplomat on a secret mission. It did not suit him any more than Mrs. Codling that his mother should scent danger in his visits to the vicarage. In such a place as Ashbrook and in ordinary circumstances all their care would have gone for nothing; but, happily for their plans, her ladyship did not go out much now, and called seldom on any of her neighbours. Her husband, the estate, her miserable son, any one of them would have given her grief or work enough to keep her well at home. When she went abroad, therefore, it was generally for an hour's drive out and home, or to Leamington or Warwick on business. Just now she was struggling hard not to lose the dream of hope that had for a short time gladdened her heart about her boy, and was failing in the effort. Notwithstanding his long visits to the Grange, his demands for money continued to be insatiable. He always put his necessities down to the bad conduct of the Jews. They had got him fast, he said, and would give him no peace. But as bill after bill got paid, only to be succeeded by a new crop, Lady Harriet began to doubt the truth of this tale, and in her unhappiness shut herself up more than ever. The Captain had only to spend a little of the money wrung from his mother in bribing her maid, and he was free to destroy all the women of the parish if he chose. CHAPTER XI. REVEALS THE SORROWS OF A MERE PEASANT MAIDEN.