dismissed the thought of Cecilia, Sir Peter did dismiss it; and,
taking comfort at last from the positive assurance that Lily was of
gentle birth, and the fact that her name of Mordaunt was that of
ancient and illustrious houses, said, with half a smile, "It might
have been worse, my dear boy. I began to be afraid that, in spite of
the teachings of Mivers and Welby, it was 'The Miller's Daughter,'
after all. But we still have a difficult task to persuade your poor
mother. In covering your first flight from our roof I unluckily put
into her head the notion of Lady Jane, a duke's daughter, and the
notion has never got out of it. That comes of fibbing."

"I count on Lady Glenalvon's influence on my mother in support of your
own," said Kenelm. "If so accepted an oracle in the great world
pronounce in my favour, and promise to present my wife at Court and
bring her into fashion, I think that my mother will consent to allow
us to reset the old family diamonds for her next reappearance in
London. And then, too, you can tell her that I will stand for the
county. I will go into Parliament, and if I meet there our clever
cousin, and find that he does not care a brass button for the country,
take my word for it, I will lick him more easily than I licked Tom
Bowles."

"Tom Bowles! who is he?--ah! I remember some letter of yours in which
you spoke of a Bowles, whose favourite study was mankind, a moral
philosopher."

"Moral philosophers," answered Kenelm, "have so muddled their brains
with the alcohol of new ideas that their moral legs have become shaky,
and the humane would rather help them to bed than give them a licking.
My Tom Bowles is a muscular Christian, who became no less muscular,