"Oh, the deuce! I'm in for it," thought Lumley.--"Very strange, indeed!
but how can you account for it? Ah, perhaps the health of Lady
Vargrave--she was so very delicate then, and my poor uncle lived for
her--you know that he left all his fortune to Miss Cameron?"

"Miss Cameron! Who is she, my lord?"

"Why, his daughter-in-law; Lady Vargrave was a widow,--a Mrs. Cameron."

"Mrs. Cam--I remember now,--they put Cameron in the newspapers; but I
thought it was a mistake. But, perhaps" (added Winsley, with a sneer of
peculiar malignity),--"perhaps, when your worthy uncle thought of being a
peer, he did not like to have it known that he married so much beneath
him."

"You quite mistake, my dear sir; my uncle never denied that Mrs. Cameron
was a lady of no fortune or connections,--widow to some poor Scotch
gentleman, who died I think in India."

"He left her very ill off, poor thing; but she had a great deal of merit,
and worked hard; she taught my girls to play--"

"Your girls! did Mrs. Cameron ever reside in C-----?"

"To be sure; but she was then called Mrs. Butler--just as pretty a name
to my fancy."

"You must make a mistake: my uncle married this lady in Devonshire."