"I wonder if you'll meet Madame Zabriska, the lady I let Merrion Lodge to, and the gentleman with her, her uncle." "I expect not. My cousin invites us for the funeral. It's on Saturday. I suppose we shall stay the Sunday, that's all. And I don't suppose we shall see anybody, to speak to, anyhow." Her air was very careless; the whole thing was represented as rather a bore. "You should make a longer visit--I'm sure his lordship will be delighted to have you, and it's a charming neighborhood, a very desirable neighborhood indeed." "I dare say. But desirable things don't generally come our way, Mr Sloyd, or at any rate not much of them." "It's pretty odd to think it'd all be yours if--if anything happened to Lord Tristram." His tone showed a mixture of amusement and awe. She was what he saw--she might become My Lady! The incongruity reached his sense of humor, while her proximity to a noble status nearly made him take off his hat. "It may be pretty odd," she said indolently, "but it doesn't do me much good, does it?" This last remark summed up the attitude which Cecily had always adopted about Blent, and she chose to maintain it now that she was at last to see Blent. Probably her father's family instinct had driven her into an insincere opposition; or she did not consider it dignified to show interest in relatives who had shown none in her. She had never been asked to Blent. If she was asked now it was as a duty; as a duty she would go. Harry did not monopolize the Tristram blood or the Tristram pride. But this attitude was not very comprehensible to her present companion. As a personal taste, Mr Sloyd would have liked to be connected, however remotely, with the aristocracy, and, if he had been, would have let his social circle hear a good deal about it; even a business connection was something, and suffered no loss of importance in his practised hands.