the Carlton six years ago, and has made himself uncommonly useful to his party.  He is supposed to be great on financial questions, and comes out tremendously on colonial railways or drainage schemes, about which the House in general is in profound ignorance.  On those occasions Smithson scores high.  A man with immense wealth has always chances.  No doubt, if you were to marry him, the peerage would be easily managed.  Smithson’s money, backed by the Maulevrier influence, would go a long way.  My grandmother would move heaven and earth in a case of that kind.  You had better take pity on Smithson.’

Lesbia laughed.  That idea of a possible peerage elevated Smithson in her eyes.  She knew nothing of his political career, as she lived in a set which ignored politics altogether.  Mr. Smithson had never talked to her of his parliamentary duties; and it was a new thing for her to hear that he had some kind of influence in public affairs.

’Suppose I were inclined to accept him, would you like him as a brother-in-law?’ she asked lightly.  ’I thought from your manner last night that you rather disliked him.’

’I don’t quite like him or any of his breed, the newly rich, who go about in society swelling with the sense of their own importance, perspiring gold, as it were.  And one has always a faint suspicion of men who have got rich very quickly, an idea that there must be some kind of juggling.  Not in the case of a great contractor, perhaps, who can point to a viaduct and docks and railways, and say, “I built that, and that, and that.  These are the sources of my wealth.”  But a man who gets enormously rich by mere ciphering!  Where can his money come from, except out of other people’s pockets?  I know nothing against your Mr. Smithson, but I always suspect that class of men,’ concluded Maulevrier shaking his head significantly.

Lesbia was not much influenced by her brother’s notions, she had never been taught to think him an oracle.  On the contrary, she had been told that his life hitherto had been all foolishness.’

‘When are Mary and Mr. Hammond to be married?’ she asked, ’Grandmother says they must wait a year.  Mary is much too young—­and so on, and so forth.  But I see no reason for waiting.’

’Surely there are reasons—­financial reasons.  Mr. Hammond cannot be in a position to begin housekeeping.’

’Oh, they will risk all that.  Molly is a daring girl.  He proposed to her on the top of Helvellyn, in a storm of wind and rain.’

‘And she never wrote me a word about it.  How very unsisterly!’

’She is as wild as a hawk, and I daresay she was too shy to tell you anything about it.’

‘Pray when did it all occur?’

‘Just before I came to London.’

’Two months ago.  How absurd for me to be in ignorance all this time!  Well, I hope Mary will be sensible, and not marry till Mr. Hammond is able to give her a decent home.  It would be so dreadful to have a sister muddling in poverty, and clamouring for one’s cast-off gowns.’