There was a whole troop of children, who had been allowed to go to the good or the bad very much in their own way, with little help or hindrance from their mother.  All the daughters were married now, excepting Maude, mostly to German barons and French counts.  One had espoused a marquis—­native country not clearly indicated; one an Italian duke:  but the marquis lived somewhere over in Algeria in a small lodging, and the Duke condescended to sing an occasional song on the Italian stage.

It was all one to Lady Kirton.  They had taken their own way, and she washed her hands of them as easily as though they had never belonged to her.  Had they been able to supply her with an occasional bank-note, or welcome her on a protracted visit, they had been her well-beloved and most estimable daughters.

Of the younger sons, all were dispersed; the dowager neither knew nor cared where.  Now and again a piteous begging-letter would come from one or the other, which she railed at and scolded over, and bade Maude answer.  Her eldest son, Lord Kirton, had married some four or five years ago, and since then the countess-dowager’s lines had been harder than ever.  Before that event she could go to the place in Ireland whenever she liked (circumstances permitting), and stay as long as she liked; but that was over now.  For the young Lady Kirton, who on her own score spent all the money her husband could scrape together, and more, had taken an inveterate dislike to her mother-in-law, and would not tolerate her.

Never, since she was thus thrown upon her own resources, had the countess-dowager’s lucky star been in the ascendant as it had been this season, for she contrived to fasten herself upon the young Lord Hartledon, and secure a firm footing in his town-house.  She called him her nephew—­“My nephew Hartledon;” but that was a little improvement upon the actual relationship, for she and the late Lady Hartledon had been cousins only.  She invited herself for a week’s sojourn in May, and had never gone away again; and it was now August.  She had come down with him, sans ceremonie, to Hartledon; had told him (as a great favour) that she would look after his house and guests during her stay, as his mother would have done.  Easy, careless, good-natured Hartledon acquiesced, and took it all as a matter of course.  To him she was ever all sweetness and suavity.

None knew better on which side her bread was buttered than the countess-dowager.  She liked it buttered on both sides, and generally contrived to get it.

She had come down to Hartledon House with one fixed determination—­that she did not quit it until the Lady Maude was its mistress.  For a long while Maude had been her sole hope.  Her other daughters had married according to their fancy—­and what had come of it?—­but Maude was different.  Maude had great beauty; and Maude, truth to say, was almost as selfishly alive to her own interest as her mother. She should marry well, and so be in a position to shelter the poor, homeless, wandering dowager.  Had she chosen from the whole batch of peers, not one could have been found more eligible than he whom fortune seemed to have turned up for her purpose—­Lord Hartledon; and before the countess-dowager had been one week his guest in London she began her scheming.