the meeting between hampstead and his sister was affectionate and, upon the whole, satisfactory, though it was necessary that a few words should be spoken which could hardly be pleasant in themselves. "i had a dinner-party here last night," he said laughing, desirous of telling her something of george roden,—and something also of marion fay.

"who were the guests?"

"roden was here." then there was silence. she was glad that her lover had been one of the guests, but she was not as yet moved to say anything respecting him. "and his mother."

"i am sure i shall like his mother," said lady frances.

"i have mentioned it," continued her brother, speaking with unusual care, "because, in compliance with the agreement i made at trafford, i cannot ask him here again at present."

"i am sorry that i should be in your way, john."

"you are not in my way, as i think you know. let us say no more than that at present. then i had a singular old quaker, named zachary fay, an earnest, honest, but humble man, who blew me up instantly for talking slang."

"where did you pick him up?"

"he comes out of the city," he said, not wishing to refer again to paradise row and the neighbourhood of the rodens,—"and he brought his daughter."

"a young lady?"

"certainly a young lady."

"ah, but young,—and beautiful?"

"young,—and beautiful."

"now you are laughing. i suppose she is some strong-minded, rather repulsive, middle-aged woman."

"as to the strength of her mind, i have not seen enough to constitute myself a judge," said hampstead, almost with a tone of offence. "why you should imagine her to be repulsive because she is a quaker, or why middle-aged, i do not understand. she is not repulsive to me."

"oh, john, i am so sorry! now i know that you have found some divine beauty."

"we sometimes entertain angels unawares. i thought that i had done so when she took her departure."

"are you in earnest?"

"i am quite in earnest as to the angel. now i have to consult you as to a project." it may be remembered that hampstead had spoken to his father as to the expediency of giving up his horses if he found that his means were not sufficient to keep up hendon hall, his yacht, and his hunting establishment in northamptonshire. the marquis, without saying a word to his son, had settled that matter, and gorse hall, with its stables, was continued. the proposition now made to lady frances was that she should go down with him and remain there for a week or two till she should find the place too dull. he had intended to fix an almost immediate day; but now he was debarred from this by his determination to see marion yet once again before he took himself altogether beyond the reach of holloway. the plan, therefore, though it was fixed as far as his own intention went and the assent of lady frances, was left undefined as to time. the more he thought of holloway, and the difficulties of approaching paradise row, the more convinced he became that his only mode of approaching marion must be through mrs. roden. he had taken two or three days to consider what would be the most appropriate manner of going through this operation, when on a sudden he was arrested by a letter from his father, begging his presence down at trafford. the marquis was ill, and was anxious to see his son. the letter in which the request was made was sad and plaintive throughout. he was hardly able to write, lord kingsbury said, because he was so unwell; but he had no one to write for him. mr. greenwood had made himself so disagreeable that he could no longer employ him for such purposes. "your stepmother is causing me much vexation, which i do not think that i deserve from her." he then added that it would be necessary for him to have his lawyer down at trafford, but that he wished to see hampstead first in order that they might settle as to certain arrangements which were required in regard to the disposition of the property. there were some things which hampstead could not fail to perceive from this letter. he was sure that his father was alarmed as to his own condition, or he would not have thought of sending for the lawyer to trafford. he had hitherto always been glad to seize an opportunity of running up to london when any matter of business had seemed to justify the journey. then it occurred to his son that his father had rarely or ever spoken or written to him of his "stepmother." in certain moods the marquis had been wont to call his wife either the marchioness or lady kingsbury. when in good humour he had generally spoken of her to his son as "your mother." the injurious though strictly legal name now given to her was a certain index of abiding wrath. but things must have been very bad with the marquis at trafford when he had utterly discarded the services of mr. greenwood,—services to which he had been used for a time to which the memory of his son did not go back. hampstead of course obeyed his father's injunctions, and went down to trafford instantly, leaving his sister alone at hendon hall. he found the marquis not in bed indeed, but confined to his own sitting-room, and to a very small bed-chamber which had been fitted up for him close to it. mr. greenwood had been anxious to give up his own rooms as being more spacious; but the offer had been peremptorily and almost indignantly refused. the marquis had been unwilling to accept anything like a courtesy from mr. greenwood. should he make up his mind to turn mr. greenwood out of the house,—and he had almost made up his mind to do so,—then he could do what he pleased with mr. greenwood's rooms. but he wasn't going to accept the loan of chambers in his own house as a favour from mr. greenwood.

hampstead on arriving at the house saw the marchioness for a moment before he went to his father. "i cannot tell how he is," said lady kingsbury, speaking in evident dudgeon. "he will hardly let me go near him. doctor spicer seems to think that we need not be alarmed. he shuts himself up in those gloomy rooms down-stairs. of course it would be better for him to be off the ground floor, where he would have more light and air. but he has become so obstinate, that i do not know how to deal with him."

"he has always liked to live in the room next to mr. greenwood's."

"he has taken an absolute hatred to mr. greenwood. you had better not mention the poor old gentleman's name to him. shut up as i am here, i have no one else to speak a word to, and for that reason, i suppose, he wishes to get rid of him. he is absolutely talking of sending the man away after having had him with him for nearly thirty years." in answer to all this hampstead said almost nothing. he knew his stepmother, and was aware that he could do no service by telling her what he might find it to be his duty to say to his father as to mr. greenwood, or on any other subject. he did not hate his stepmother,—as she hated him. but he regarded her as one to whom it was quite useless to speak seriously as to the affairs of the family. he knew her to be prejudiced, ignorant, and falsely proud,—but he did not suppose her to be either wicked or cruel.

his father began almost instantly about mr. greenwood, so that it would have been quite impossible for him to follow lady kingsbury's advice on that matter had he been ever so well minded. "of course i'm ill," he said; "i suffer so much from sickness and dyspepsia that i can eat nothing. doctor spicer seems to think that i should get better if i did not worry myself; but there are so many things to worry me. the conduct of that man is abominable."

"what man, sir?" asked hampstead,—who knew, however, very well what was coming.

"that clergyman," said lord kingsbury, pointing in the direction of mr. greenwood's room.

"he does not come to you, sir, unless you send for him?"

"i haven't seen him for the last five days, and i don't care if i never see him again."

"how has he offended you, sir?"

"i gave him my express injunctions that he should not speak of your sister either to me or the marchioness. he gave me his solemn promise, and i know very well that they are talking about her every hour of the day."

"perhaps that is not his fault."

"yes, it is. a man needn't talk to a woman unless he likes. it is downright impudence on his part. your stepmother comes to me every day, and never leaves me without abusing fanny."

"that is why i thought it better that fanny should come to me."

"and then, when i argue with her, she always tells me what mr. greenwood says about it. who cares about mr. greenwood? what business has mr. greenwood to interfere in my family? he does not know how to behave himself, and he shall go."

"he has been here a great many years, sir," said hampstead, pleading for the old man.

"too many," said the marquis. "when you've had a man about you so long as that, he is sure to take liberties."

"you must provide for him, sir, if he goes."

"i have thought of that. he must have something, of course. he has had three hundred a-year for the last ten years, and has had everything found for him down to his washing and his cab fares. for five-and-twenty years he has never paid for a bed or a meal out of his own pocket. what has he done with his money? he ought to be a rich man for his degree."

"what a man does with his money is, i suppose, no concern to those who pay it. it is supposed to have been earned, and there is an end of it as far as they are concerned."

"he shall have a thousand pounds," said the marquis.

"that would hardly be liberal. i would think twice before i dismissed him, sir."

"i have thought a dozen times."

"i would let him remain," said hampstead, "if only because he's a comfort to lady kingsbury. what does it matter though he does talk of fanny? were he to go she would talk to somebody else who might be perhaps less fit to hear her, and he would, of course, talk to everybody."

"why has he not obeyed me?" demanded the marquis, angrily. "it is i who have employed him. i have been his patron, and now he turns against me." thus the marquis went on till his strength would not suffice for any further talking. hampstead found himself quite unable to bring him to any other subject on that day. he was sore with the injury done him in that he was not allowed to be the master in his own house.

on the next morning hampstead heard from dr. spicer that his father was in a state of health very far from satisfactory. the doctor recommended that he should be taken away from trafford, and at last went so far as to say that his advice extended to separating his patient from lady kingsbury. "it is, of course, a very disagreeable subject," said the doctor, "for a medical man to meddle with; but, my lord, the truth is that lady kingsbury frets him. i don't, of course, care to hear what it is, but there is something wrong." lord hampstead, who knew very well what it was, did not attempt to contradict him. when, however, he spoke to his father of the expediency of change of air, the marquis told him that he would rather die at trafford than elsewhere.

that his father was really thinking of his death was only too apparent from all that was said and done. as to those matters of business, they were soon settled between them. there was, at any rate, that comfort to the poor man that there was no probability of any difference between him and his heir as to the property or as to money. half-an-hour settled all that. then came the time which had been arranged for hampstead's return to his sister. but before he went there were conversations between him and mr. greenwood, between him and his stepmother, and between him and his father, to which, for the sake of our story, it may be as well to refer.

"i think your father is ill-treating me," said mr. greenwood. mr. greenwood had allowed himself to be talked into a thorough contempt and dislike for the young lord; so that he had almost brought himself to believe in those predictions as to the young lord's death in which lady kingsbury was always indulging. as a consequence of this, he now spoke in a voice very different from those obsequious tones which he had before been accustomed to use when he had regarded lord hampstead as his young patron.

"i am sure my father would never do that," said hampstead, angrily.

"it looks very like it. i have devoted all the best of my life to his service, and he now talks of dismissing me as though i were no better than a servant."

"whatever he does, he will, i am sure, have adequate cause for doing."

"i have done nothing but my duty. it is out of the question that a man in my position should submit to orders as to what he is to talk about and what not. it is natural that lady kingsbury should come to me in her troubles."

"if you will take my advice," said lord hampstead, in that tone of voice which always produces in the mind of the listener a determination that the special advice offered shall not be taken, "you will comply with my father's wishes while it suits you to live in his house. if you cannot do that, it would become you, i think, to leave it." in every word of this there was a rebuke; and mr. greenwood, who did not like being rebuked, remembered it.

"of course i am nobody in this house now," said the marchioness in her last interview with her stepson. it is of no use to argue with an angry woman, and in answer to this hampstead made some gentle murmur which was intended neither to assent or to dispute the proposition made to him. "because i ventured to disapprove of mr. roden as a husband for your sister i have been shut up here, and not allowed to speak to any one."

"fanny has left the house, so that she may no longer cause you annoyance by her presence."

"she has left the house in order that she may be near the abominable lover with whom you have furnished her."

"this is not true," said hampstead, who was moved beyond his control by the double falseness of the accusation.

"of course you can be insolent to me, and tell me that i speak falsehoods. it is part of your new creed that you should be neither respectful to a parent, nor civil to a lady."

"i beg your pardon, lady kingsbury,"—he had never called her lady kingsbury before,—"if i have been disrespectful or uncivil, but your statements were very hard to bear. fanny's engagement with mr. roden has not even received my sanction. much less was it arranged or encouraged by me. she has not gone to hendon hall to be near mr. roden, with whom she had undertaken to hold no communication as long as she remains there with me. both for my own sake and for hers i am bound to repudiate the accusation." then he went without further adieu, leaving with her a conviction that she had been treated with the greatest contumely by her husband's rebellious heir.

nothing could be sadder than the last words which the marquis spoke to his son. "i don't suppose, hampstead, that we shall ever meet again in this world."

"oh, father!"

"i don't think mr. spicer knows how bad i am."

"will you have sir james down from london?"

"no sir james can do me any good, i fear. it is ill ministering to a mind diseased."

"why, sir, should you have a mind diseased? with few men can things be said to be more prosperous than with you. surely this affair of fanny's is not of such a nature as to make you feel that all things are bitter round you."

"it is not that."

"what then? i hope i have not been a cause of grief to you?"

"no, my boy;—no. it irks me sometimes to think that i should have trained you to ideas which you have taken up too violently. but it is not that."

"my mother—?"

"she has set her heart against me,—against you and fanny. i feel that a division has been made between my two families. why should my daughter be expelled from my own house? why should i not be able to have you here, except as an enemy in the camp? why am i to have that man take up arms against me, whom i have fed in idleness all his life?"

"i would not let him trouble my thoughts."

"when you are old and weak you will find it hard to banish thoughts that trouble you. as to going, where am i to go to?"

"come to hendon."

"and leave her here with him, so that all the world shall say that i am running away from my own wife? hendon is your house now, and this is mine;—and here i must stay till my time has come."

this was very sad, not as indicating the state of his father's health, as to which he was more disposed to take the doctor's opinion than that of the patient, but as showing the infirmity of his father's mind. he had been aware of a certain weakness in his father's character,—a desire not so much for ruling as for seeming to rule all that were around him. the marquis had wished to be thought a despot even when he had delighted in submitting himself to the stronger mind of his first wife. now he felt the chains that were imposed upon him, so that they galled him when he could not throw them off. all this was very sad to hampstead; but it did not make him think that his father's health had in truth been seriously affected.