pleasantly, even to such a gay bachelor as Mr. Crampton.

"Madam," said he, with much gravity, "the daughters of such a mother
must be charming; but I, who have seen your Ladyship, am, alas!
proof against even them."

Both parties here heaved tremendous sighs and affected to be
wonderfully unhappy about something.

"I wish," after a pause, said Lady Gorgon--"I wish, dear Mr.
Crampton, you would not use that odious title 'my Ladyship:' you
know it always makes me melancholy."

"Melancholy, my dear Lady Gorgon; and why?"

"Because it makes me think of another title that ought to have been
mine--ours (I speak for dear Sir George's and my darling boy's sake,
Heaven knows, not mine). What a sad disappointment it has been to
my husband, that after all his services, all the promises he has
had, they have never given him his peerage. As for me, you know--"

"For you, my dear madam, I know quite well that you care for no such
bauble as a coronet, except in so far as it may confer honour upon
those most dear to you--excellent wife and noble mother as you are.
Heigho! what a happy man is Sir George!"

Here there was another pause, and if Mr. Perkins could have seen
what was taking place behind the screen, he would have beheld little
Mr. Crampton looking into Lady Gorgon's face, with as love-sick a
Romeo-gaze as he could possibly counterfeit; while her Ladyship,