“Naturally it would be most disagreeable for you or Charlotte to be obliged to do it, but I shan’t object to it, I assure you! You must know that I am a — a stranger to the tenderer emotions. Except,” she added, in a less elevated strain, “for falling in love with one of the footmen when I was twelve, and that was not a lasting passion, besides being quite ineligible, so we need not consider it. Are you acquainted with any wealthy old gentlemen, Adam?”

“I’m afraid not. And if I were I should conceal them from you! I had liefer by far let Fontley go than see you sacrificed to save it, and though you haven’t yet been in love there’s no saying but what you might be one day, and then what a bore it would be for you to be tied to a wealthy old gentleman!”

“Yes,” she agreed, “but one ought to be ready to make sacrifices for one’s family, I think. And, after all, he might be dead by then!”

“Very true! And if he had survived — though I don’t think it at all likely that he would! — we could always finish him off with a phial of some subtle poison.”

This appealed so strongly to Lydia that she went into a peal of laughter, at which inopportune moment the door opened to admit Lady Lynton, trailing yards of crape, mobled with ‘black lace, and leaning on the arm of her elder daughter. She paused on the threshold, saying in a faint, incredulous voice: “Laughing, my dear ones?”

Charlotte, who was as kind as she was beautiful, said: “It was so delightful to hear! Lydia was always able to make dear Adam laugh, even when he was in pain, wasn’t she, Mama?”

“I am glad to know that there is anyone at Fontley who is able to laugh at this moment,” said Lady Lynton.