Lord Erymanth had told me that his sister would soon be at home, and in September I was surprised by a call from Dermot.  “Yes, I’m at Arked,” he said, “Killy Marey is full of Dublin workmen.  My uncle has undertaken to make it habitable for me, like an old brick, and, in the meantime, there’s not a room fit to smoke or sleep in, so I’m come home like a dutiful son.”

“Then your mother is come?”

“Oh yes; she is come for six weeks, and then she and the St. Glears are to join company and winter at Rome.”

“At Rome?”

“Prevention, you see,” said Dermot, with a twinkle in his eye, as if he were not very uneasy.  “The question is whether it is in time.  She will have Piggy’s attentions at Christmas.  He is to come out for the vacation.”

Then he further told me that his mother had brought home with her a Mrs. Sandford with a daughter, heiress to L60,000, and to a newly-bought estate in Surrey, and newly-built house “of the most desirable description,” he added, shrugging his shoulders.

“And what sort of a young lady is she?”

“Oh, very desirable, too, I suppose.”

“But what is she like?”

“Like?  Oh, like other people,” and he whistled a little, seeming relieved when “Count Stanislas” came in, and soon after going to hunt up Harry at the Hydriot works.

It made me uncomfortable; it was so evidently another attempt on his mother’s part to secure a rich home for him in England, and his tone did not at all reassure me that, with his easy temper, he would not drift into the arrangement without his heart in it.  “Why should I be so vexed about it?  It might be very good for him,” said I to myself.

No, his heart was not in it, for he came back with Harold, and lingered over our fire beyond all reasonable time, talking amusing random stuff, till he had left himself only ten minutes to ride home in to dinner.

The next day Harold and I rode over to Arked together.  Dermot was the first person we saw, disporting himself with a pug-dog at the door.  “The fates have sped you well,” said he, as he helped me down from my pony.  “My mother has taken Mrs. Sandford in state to call on Mrs. Vernon, having arranged that Viola and I should conduct the sixty-thousand pounder to admire the tints in the beech woods.  The young ladies are putting on their hats.  Will it be too far for you, Lucy, to go with us?”

Wherewith he fraternally shouted for “Vi,” who appeared all in a rosy glow, and took me upstairs to equip me for walking, extracting from me in the meantime the main features of the story of the bloodhound, and trembling while she gave exulting little nods.