cares much for the subjects in which you are so interested, dear
Mrs. Arbuthnot. Do you think, Caroline, that Lord Illingworth is
interested in the Housing of the Poor?

LADY CAROLINE. I should fancy not at all, Jane.

LADY HUNSTANTON. We all have our different tastes, have we not?
But Lord Illingworth has a very high position, and there is nothing
he couldn't get if he chose to ask for it. Of course, he is
comparatively a young man still, and he has only come to his title
within - how long exactly is it, Caroline, since Lord Illingworth
succeeded?

LADY CAROLINE. About four years, I think, Jane. I know it was the
same year in which my brother had his last exposure in the evening
newspapers.

LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah, I remember. That would be about four years
ago. Of course, there were a great many people between the present
Lord Illingworth and the title, Mrs. Arbuthnot. There was - who
was there, Caroline?

LADY CAROLINE. There was poor Margaret's baby. You remember how
anxious she was to have a boy, and it was a boy, but it died, and
her husband died shortly afterwards, and she married almost
immediately one of Lord Ascot's sons, who, I am told, beats her.

LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah, that is in the family, dear, that is in the
family. And there was also, I remember, a clergyman who wanted to
be a lunatic, or a lunatic who wanted to be a clergyman, I forget