for a few brief weeks of fashionable life, and now on the wing to some
place of safety, had she dodged about, and become utterly unscrupulous.

There was a whole troop of children, who had been allowed to go to
the good or the bad very much in their own way, with little help or
hindrance from their mother. All the daughters were married now,
excepting Maude, mostly to German barons and French counts. One had
espoused a marquis--native country not clearly indicated; one an Italian
duke: but the marquis lived somewhere over in Algeria in a small lodging,
and the Duke condescended to sing an occasional song on the Italian
stage.

It was all one to Lady Kirton. They had taken their own way, and she
washed her hands of them as easily as though they had never belonged to
her. Had they been able to supply her with an occasional bank-note, or
welcome her on a protracted visit, they had been her well-beloved and
most estimable daughters.

Of the younger sons, all were dispersed; the dowager neither knew nor
cared where. Now and again a piteous begging-letter would come from one
or the other, which she railed at and scolded over, and bade Maude
answer. Her eldest son, Lord Kirton, had married some four or five years
ago, and since then the countess-dowager's lines had been harder than
ever. Before that event she could go to the place in Ireland whenever she
liked (circumstances permitting), and stay as long as she liked; but that
was over now. For the young Lady Kirton, who on her own score spent all
the money her husband could scrape together, and more, had taken an
inveterate dislike to her mother-in-law, and would not tolerate her.

Never, since she was thus thrown upon her own resources, had the