Parliament; and then all about his famous father. I undertake to
keep him talking till ten."

"Then, poor fellow, he'll have to work all night to make it up."

"Indeed, no! I shall expressly forbid it. What a shocking thing if
he died here, and it got into the papers! Aunt, do consider; they
would call you his _landlady_!"

Mrs. Hannaford reddened whilst laughing, and the girl saw that her
joke was not entirely relished, but she could never resist the
temptation to make fun of certain prejudices.

"And when you give your evidence," she went on, "the coroner will
remark that if the influence of a lady so obviously sweet and
right-feeling and intelligent could not avail to save the poor
youth, he was plainly destined to a premature end."

At which Mrs. Hannaford again laughed and reddened, but this time
with gratification.

If Irene sometimes made a mistake, no one could have perceived it
more quickly, and more charmingly have redeemed the slip.


CHAPTER IV


When Piers Otway got back to Ewell, about four o'clock, he felt the
beginning of a headache. The day of excitement might have accounted