and who would give you in return what
you want."

"The title! Ah! I understand. To be
sure. My dear Randall, you give us new
life."

"We shall be in a better position than
before. But the first thing is, we must get
the estate free. We must push on this
deed, and get him to execute it at once.
You must bring Leader to that immediately,
for he seems to have some reluctance, and
then we shall have the ground cleared to
make a beginning. But take my advice,
and be cautious. He has some objection
to it, and he might take an obstinate fit.
I don't think he looks very well lately."

Thus did Mrs. Leader and her brother
lay their plans together, and the lady was
now furnished with new hopes, and plans,
and resources. Already she was repairing
the shattered stagings and rickety ladders
which led up to the fashionable pier, and
which the recent storm had so completely
swept away.

But the sharp eye of her brother had
detected a difficulty which had been made
small account of, namely, a sort of querulous
obstructiveness in the hitherto weak
proprietor of Leadersfort, and which seemed to
come of ill health, or nervousness, or from
some natural feeling towards his own
son. When Mrs. Leader, full of her new
schemes, again approached the subject,
she found him worried, and even testy,
saying that there was no need of such a
violent hurry.

"These poor creatures," he said, "will
find their misery soon enough, and—and it
seems to be a very hasty and harsh
proceeding to my only son."

"Your only son!" she repeated, with a
sort of contempt, "and how has your only
son treated you? Are you going to show
yourself so weak that you will put up with
any outrageous treatment, and have all the
world laughing at you? 'Pon my word, if
you can sit down under that, you will put
up with any degradation."

"Oh, it was very wrong, and all that,"
he answered; "but all I say is, there is
no need for this violent hurry, forcing one
into these things before one has time to
look about one. After all, I am the head
of the family, and may have some voice."

"A pretty head, indeed," said the lady.
"It was your folly that let all this come
about. I tell you it must be done, and it
shall be done, and the quicker it is done
the better for you. They are pushing on
the papers as fast as they can, and we'll
see that you sign them when they come.
Don't worry me any more now. There."

  CHAPTER II. FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

The little man was cowed, and withdrew,
as he always did, in confusion. He went
out with his demure daughter to look at
a new exhibition of pictures, one of those
little expeditions in which they both
delighted when they got rid of the state, and
the fashion, and the reckless struggle to
get into society, which made life miserable
for both. The daughter was very dowdy
in her dress; he seemed like a reputable
shopkeeper in his; and both together might
have been taken for an honest citizen and
his daughter out for a holiday. Mrs.
Leader ordered the great carriage and the
liveries round, and, going up to her maid,
who flattered her as regularly as she dressed
her hair, told her, for the thousandth time,
she was the image of the Duchess of
Banffshire, a lady of quality, not beautiful,
certainly, but with a nameless je ne sais
quoi of fascination, a dignity and grace, a
calm voice, which laid all the world at
her feet. The grim features now before
the glass, being decked with the gaudiest
flowers and ribbons, relaxed into a gaunt
smile, which the Abigail knew to be an
invitation to invent further details about
the duchess. At last arranged, she went
down, flaming as if in a San Benito, and
drove off to Lady Seaman's, where she had
determined to open the trenches once more.

That lady had a son, now enjoying
the title, who had only recently come of
age. He was nephew to the great Earl of
Mountacorn, a vast, inert political power,
who was a figure-head on one of the large
conservative ironclads. The young Lord
Seaman was not very rich, but had this
excellent connexion. His mother had openly
determined to get him a good match with
money. He was a small, fair youth, quite
bewildered at this sudden coming into his
honours, intoxicated with the new power
of rank and money, and from the
obsequiousness of those about him, and their
profuse "my lords," believing that the
whole world was made specially for him.

Lady Seaman receiving some lady friends,
gave a scarcely suppressed exclamation of
impatience as Mrs. Leader entered: "That
woman coming here to worry me!"

Mrs. Leader swam in, rustling and crackling
with her silks: "Oh, Lady Seaman,"
she said, in her dulcet voice, almost before
she sat down, "I have brought you a
contribution for your poor protégée"—a lady's