“No,” agreed Nell, “but I must own that she has shown the greatest constancy, in spite of having been very much made up to, ever since she came out. I did venture once to suggest to Cardross that perhaps it would not be such a very bad match after all, but—but he cannot like it, and will only say that if she is still of the same mind when she is a few years older he will not then receive Mr. Allandale in an unfriendly spirit.”

“Throwing herself away,” said Mr. Hethersett disapprovingly. “Dash it, cousin, very taking little thing! Besides being an heiress. Not but what,” he added, as a thought occurred to him, “very understandable you should wish to see her safely tied up to someone! I daresay she’s the deuce of a charge.”

“Oh, no, indeed she is not!” Nell said, quite distressed. “How could you think I wished to be rid of her? I am only too happy to have her companionship!”

Much abashed, he begged pardon. His earlier strictures on her family notwithstanding he was one of her more faithful admirers, and was generally recognized to be her cicisbeo-in-chief. She had other and more dazzling followers, but he was certainly her favourite: a circumstance which presented an enigma to the worldlings who never dreamed that the beautiful young Countess had no taste for dalliance, but smiled on Mr. Hethersett because he was her lord’s cousin. She treated him much as she treated her brother, an arrangement which suited him very well, since he was not, in fact, much of a lady’s man, but attached himself to the court of some lady of rank and beauty as a matter of ton. A high stickler, Mr. Hethersett, precise to a pin, blessed with propriety of taste, an impeccable lineage, and a comfortable fortune.