anter than entertaining, if you have a nice party," rejoins Milly, "and I hate to be under obligations to anybody."

"Oh! that's all very well, if you've got twenty thousand a year; but we have only four, and it's no use thinking of it. And if we want to ask anyone particularly, I'll get my mother to have them to Wentworth. Guy is sure not to object."

"Well, but suppose your brother marries." (This conversation is soon after Milly's marriage.)

"I don't suppose he will, but, if he does, I shall make myself agreeable to my sisterin-law, and you can do the same to Guy, and we shall get all we want."

It need hardly be said that these views are very little in accordance with Milly's own, but she gives way, at all events, on the subject of letting the house, much as she dislikes the idea.

Adrian takes it all as a matter of course; he is accustomed to have sacrifices made

for him. When Guy heard all this, which he did from his brother in Paris, he said to himself, "Milly shall not miss her country house. Wentworth shall be her home whenever she chooses to go to it." But now that circumstances are so changed, that he is going to marry Dolores, and that he feels Milly's absence, not her presence, is essential to his happiness and well-being, he is utterly perplexed what to do.

"Adrian will of course expect to come to Wentworth for partridge and pheasantshooting; she must come if he does, and then," adds Guy, groaning, "there will be the old story over again, and worse, for when Dolores is mistress at the Court, if she chooses to be jealous, she can make it very unpleasant for Milly. She is a dear, good little girl; but once a woman is jealous, and in a position to wreak her resentment on her rival, they're all the very

"Wentworth Station !" shrieks the por

ter at this juncture; for the last soliloquy has taken place in the train, en route for Wentworth Court.

VOL. II.

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290

CHAPTER XVI.

L

LADY WENTWORTH.

ADY WENTWORTH is sitting in her own room, awaiting the arrival of her son. It is indeed what most ladies would call their boudoir; but Lady Wentworth likes plain English names, and it therefore always goes by the name of "my lady's sitting-room." Every article in it is handsome, and useful too, if we except the beautiful collection of china, which is my lady's chief delight. She is one of the old school, but without the homeliness that usually characterises that type-she is essentially a grande dame. You recognise that at once by her manner and dress.

She never wears anything but the richest silks and brocades, even to visit her garden and poultry-yard; but on these occasions her dress is always looped daintily over a spotless-white petticoat, just disclosing what is still a beautiful little foot, in a clocked-silk stocking and high-heeled shoe, and a large white muslin apron protects the front of her dress. Her hair, almost white now, is brushed up after the manner of an old picture, and surmounted by a cap of costly lace. Her delicate fingers always flash with diamonds.

She has her own ideas about the devoir of an English lady, as her son (who probably inherits them from her) has his of what is right and proper for himself. She thinks it the business of a woman of quality to act and dress in accordance with her position-silk and satin and rich fabrics are the appropriate garb of the rich and wellborn; cotton and woollen material for the lower classes. She has never permitted