“He is dying, and can’t be moved.”

“But that son of his—­Mountjoy.  It’s altogether a most distressing story.  He turns out to be nobody after all, and now he has disappeared, and the papers for an entire month were full of him.  What would you do if he were to turn up here?  The girl was engaged to him, you know, and has only thrown him off since his own father declared that he was not legitimate.  There never was such a mess about anything since London first began.”

Then Sir Magnus declared that, let Mountjoy Scarborough and his father have misbehaved as they might, Mr. Scarborough’s sister must be received at Brussels.  There was a little family difficulty.  Sir Magnus had borrowed three thousand pounds from the general which had been settled on the general’s widow, and the interest was not always paid with extreme punctuality.  To give Mrs. Mountjoy her due, it must be said that this had not entered into her consideration when she had written to her brother-in-law; but it was a burden to Sir Magnus, and had always tended to produce from him a reiteration of those invitations, which Mrs. Mountjoy had taken as an expression of brotherly love.  Her own income was always sufficient for her wants, and the hundred and fifty pounds coming from Sir Magnus had not troubled her much.  “Well, my dear, if it must be it must;—­only what I’m to do with her I do not know.”

“Take her about in the carriage,” said Sir Magnus, who was beginning to be a little angry with this interference.

“And the daughter?  Daughters are twice more troublesome than their mothers.”

“Pass her over to Miss Abbott.  And for goodness’ sake don’t make so much trouble about things which need not be troublesome.”  Then Sir Magnus left his wife to ring for her chambermaid and go on with her painting, while he himself undertook the unwonted task of writing an affectionate letter to his sister-in-law.  It should be here explained that Sir Magnus had no children of his own, and that Miss Abbott was the lady who was bound to smile and say pretty things on all occasions to Lady Mountjoy for the moderate remuneration of two hundred a year and her maintenance.

The letter which Sir Magnus wrote was as follows: 

My dear Sarah,—­Lady Mountjoy bids me say that we shall be delighted to receive you and my niece at the British Ministry on the 1st of October, and hope that you will stay with us till the end of the month.—­Believe me, most affectionately yours, Magnus Mountjoy.

“I have a most kind letter from Sir Magnus,” said Mrs. Mountjoy to her daughter.

“What does he say?”

“That he will be delighted to receive us on the 1st of October.  I did say that we should be ready to start in about a week’s time, because I know that he gets home from his autumn holiday by the middle of September.  But I have no doubt he has his house full till the time he has named.”