"Is it something about--Miss Hunsden?" hesitatingly. "I thought mamma
looked displeased at dinner."

"Displeased!" exclaimed the young man, with a short laugh; "that is a
mild way of putting it. Mamma is inclined to play the Grand Mogul in
my case as she did with you and poor Fred Douglas."

"Oh, brother!"

"Forgive me, Milly. I'm a brute and you're an angel, if there ever was
one on earth! But I've been hectored and lectured, and badgered and
bothered until I'm fairly beside myself. She wants me to marry Lady
Louise, and I won't marry Lady Louise if she was the last woman alive.
Milly, who was Miss Hunsden's mother?"

"Her mother? I'm sure I don't know. I was quite a little girl when
Captain Hunsden was here before, and Harrie was a pretty little
curly-haired fairy of three years. I remember her so well. Captain
Hunsden dined here once or twice, and I recollect perfectly how gloomy
and morose his manner was. I was quite frightened at him. You were at
Eton then, you know."

"I know!" impatiently. "I wish to Heaven I had not been. Boy as I
was, I should have learned something. Did you never hear the cause of
the captain's gloom?"

"No; papa and mamma knew nothing, and Captain Hunsden kept his own
secrets. They had heard of his marriage some four or five years
before--a low marriage, it was rumored--an actress, or something