'The favour is yours,' returned her ladyship. 'And if the Count cannot
come, you at least are at liberty?'

'You are most kind,' said the Countess.

'Andrew and his wife I should not dare to separate for more than a week,'
said Lady Jocelyn. 'He is the great British husband. The proprietor!
"My wife" is his unanswerable excuse.'

'Yes,' Andrew replied cheerily. 'I don't like division between man and
wife, I must say.'

The Countess dared no longer instance the Count, her husband. She was
heard to murmur that citizen feelings were not hers:

'You suggested Fallow field to Melville, did you not?' asked Lady
Jocelyn.

'It was the merest suggestion,' said the Countess, smiling.

'Then you must really stay to see us through it,' said her ladyship.
'Where are they now? They must be making straight for break-neck fence.
They'll have him there. George hasn't pluck for that.'

'Hasn't what?'

It was the Countess who requested to know the name of this other piece of
Providence Mr. George Uplift was deficient in.