'Yes,' said Lord Ormersfield, with a look nearly approaching a smile,
'you are the last person I ought to invite, if I wish to keep your
nephew unspoiled.'

'I wish there were any one else to spoil him!'

'For his sake, then, come and make Ormersfield cheerful. It will be
far better for him.'

'And for you, to see more of Jem,' she added. 'If he were yours,
what would you say to such hours?'

The last words were aimed at a young man who came briskly into the
room, and as he kissed her, and shook hands with the Earl, answered
in a quick, bright tone, 'Shocking, aye. All owing to sitting up
till one!'

'Reading?' said the Earl.

'Reading,' he answered, with a sort of laughing satisfaction in
dashing aside the approval expressed in the query, 'but not quite as
you suppose. See here,' as he held up maliciously a railway novel.

'I am afraid I know where it came from,' said Lord Ormersfield.

'Exactly so,' said James. 'It was Fitzjocelyn's desertion of it that
excited my curiosity.'

'Indeed. I should have thought his desertions far too common to