“I think I’ll go up and see the little beggars,” he said, to make a diversion; and he slipped away before she could stop him and went up, four stairs at a time, to the nurseries. There he was extremely popular and much beloved, especially by Jack; and there he was perfectly happy, being a young man of simple tastes, limited intelligence, and affectionate disposition. He was in the midst of an uproarious game of romps there one day, when Cocky looked in from the doorway with an odd little smile. “What a good paterfamilias you’ll be, Harry, when your time comes!” he said, with a look which made poor Harry color to the roots of his hair. The head nurse intervened by calling to order noisy, laughing little Jack. “Don’t you see your dear papa at the door, Lord Kersholm?” said that discreet woman. This day there was no Cocky in the doorway; but the blindman’s buff was early in its merry course interrupted by a message from Lady Kenilworth requesting his presence downstairs. “Oh, Lord, what a pity!” said Brancepeth, as he pulled the handkerchief off his eyes, swung Jack up above his head, and then kissed him a dozen times. “I wasn’t doing any harm,” he said sulkily, as he reëntered the presence of Jack’s mother. “Yes, you were,” she said coldly. “I cannot allow you to be upstairs with the children so long and so constantly. Their women must think it very odd; they will talk. No other of my husband’s friends enters the nurseries. You must have something to do at the barracks, or the clubs, or the stables, or somewhere. Go and do it.” Brancepeth hung his head. He understood what his punishment would be if he dreamed of marrying the Massarene heiress or any other person whatsoever. Not to see the children any more except as any other of “Cocky’s friends” saw them! He was tender-hearted and weak in will; she cowed him and ruled him with a rod of iron. “Lord, how right my grandmother Luce was!” thought the poor fellow as he went down Stanhope Street meekly, feeling in remembrance the touch of Jack’s soft, fresh, rosy lips. CHAPTER IX. Some time before Easter cards had been issued for a Costume Ball at Otterbourne House, _temp._ Charles II., to be given immediately after Easter. The Duke occasionally lent the mansion to his daughter-in-law for such entertainments, never very willingly, for he had always to defray himself the cost of them, and he greatly disliked many members of her set. But he recognized a certain right in his eldest son’s wife to have the house sometimes, though he did not concede that it went so far as for her to inhabit it. Those little dark-eyed children running about Otterbourne House, and Harry Brancepeth going in and out of it continually--“Not whilst I live,” said the Duke to himself. After him, Cocky must do as he chose. Cocky would probably let it, or sell it at once for a monster hotel.