made by her sisters had, in fact, been secured by extravagant dowering,
which had left nothing for poor Lady Constance except a miserable three
hundred pounds a year, at which paltry figure no man had as yet offered
to take her. The Countess (Dowager) habitually assumed that Marmaduke
Lind ardently desired the hand of his cousin; and Constance herself
supported tacitly this view; but the Earl was apt to become restive when
it was put forward, though he altogether declined to improve his
sister's pecuniary position, having already speculated quite heavily
enough in brothers-in-law.

In the August following the Wandsworth concert Lord Carbury began to
take his electrical laboratory with such intensified seriousness that he
flatly refused to entertain any visitors until the 12th, and held fast
to his determination in spite of his mother's threat to leave the house,
alleging, with a laugh, that he had got hold of a discovery with money
in it at last. But he felt at such a disadvantage after this incredible
statement that he hastened to explain that his objection to visitors did
not apply to relatives who would be sufficiently at home at Towers
Cottage to require no attention from him. Under the terms of this
capitulation Marian, as universal favorite, was invited; and since there
was no getting Marian down without Elinor, she was invited too, in
spite of the Countess's strong dislike for her, a sentiment which she
requited with a pungent mixture of detestation and contempt. Marian's
brother, the Reverend George Lind, promised to come down in a day or
two; and Marmaduke, who was also invited, did not reply.

The morning after her arrival, Marian was awakened at six o'clock by a
wagon rumbling past the window of her room with a sound quite different
from that made by the dust-cart in Westbourne Terrace. She peeped out at
it, and saw that is was laden with packages of irregular shape, which,