"That depends," thought Crosbie, "on what the duties of a viscountess may be supposed to be." But he wished his new friend good-by, without saying anything further as to Lady Dumbello, and, at about six o'clock in the evening, had himself driven up under the portico of Courcy Castle. CHAPTER XVII. COURCY CASTLE. Courcy Castle was very full. In the first place, there was a great gathering there of all the Courcy family. The earl was there,--and the countess, of course. At this period of the year Lady De Courcy was always at home; but the presence of the earl himself had heretofore been by no means so certain. He was a man who had been much given to royal visitings and attendances, to parties in the Highlands, to--no doubt necessary--prolongations of the London season, to sojournings at certain German watering-places, convenient, probably, in order that he might study the ways and ceremonies of German Courts,--and to various other absences from home, occasioned by a close pursuit of his own special aims in life; for the Earl De Courcy had been a great courtier. But of late gout, lumbago, and perhaps also some diminution in his powers of making himself generally agreeable, had reconciled him to domestic duties, and the earl spent much of his time at home. The countess, in former days, had been heard to complain of her lord's frequent absence. But it is hard to please some women,--and now she would not always be satisfied with his presence. And all the sons and daughters were there,--excepting Lord Porlock, the eldest, who never met his father. The earl and Lord Porlock were not on terms, and indeed hated each other as only such fathers and such sons can hate. The Honourable George De Courcy was there with his bride, he having lately performed a manifest duty, in having married a young woman with money. Very young she was not,--having reached some years of her life in advance of thirty; but then, neither was the Honourable George very young; and in this respect the two were not ill-sorted. The lady's money had not been very much,--perhaps thirty thousand pounds or so. But then the Honourable George's money had been absolutely none. Now he had an income on which he could live, and therefore his father and mother had forgiven him all his sins, and taken him again to their bosom. And the marriage was matter of great moment, for the elder scion of the house had not yet taken to himself a wife, and the De Courcy family might have to look to this union for an heir. The lady herself was not beautiful, or clever, or of imposing manners--nor was she of high birth. But neither was she ugly, nor unbearably stupid. Her manners were, at any rate, innocent; and as to her birth,--seeing that, from the first, she was not supposed to have had any,--no disappointment was felt. Her father had been a coal-merchant. She was always called Mrs. George, and the effort made respecting her by everybody in and