Mrs. Pagnell performed the offices of attention to Mr. Weyburn in lieu of the countess, who seemed to find it a task to sit at the luncheon table with him, when Lady Ormont was absent.  “Just peeped in,” she said as she entered the library, “to see if all was comfortable;” and gossip ensued, not devoid of object.  She extracted an astonishingly smooth description of Lady Charlotte.  Weyburn was brightness in speaking of the much-misunderstood lady.  “She’s one of the living women of the world.”

“You are sure you don’t mean one of the worldly women?” Mrs. Pagnell rejoiced.

“She has to be known to be liked,” he owned.

“And you were, one hears, among the favoured?”

“I can scarcely pretend to that, ma’am.”

“You were recommended.”

“Lady Charlotte is devoted to her brother.”

Mrs. Pagnell’s bosom heaved.  “How strange Lord Ormont is!  One would suppose, with his indignation at the country for its treatment of him, admirers would be welcome.  Oh dear, no! that is not the way.  On board the packet, on our voyage to Spain, my niece in her cabin, imploring mercy of Neptune, as they say, I heard of Lord Ormont among the passengers.  I could hardly credit my ears.  For I had been hearing of him from my niece ever since her return from a select establishment for the education of young ladies, not much more than a morning’s drive out of London, though Dover was my residence.  She had got a hero!  It was Lord Ormont!  Lord Ormont! all day:  and when the behaviour of the country to him became notorious, Aminta—­my niece the countess—­she could hardly contain herself.  A secret:—­I promised her—­it’s not known to Lord Ormont himself:—­a printed letter in a metropolitan paper, copied into the provincial papers, upholding him for one of the greatest of our patriot soldiers and the saviour of India, was the work of her hands.  You would, I am sure, think it really well written.  Meeting him on deck —­the outline of the coast of Portugal for an introductory subject, our Peninsular battles and so forth—­I spoke of her enthusiasm.  The effect was, to cut off all communication between us.  I had only to appear, Lord Ormont vanished.  I said to myself, this is a character.  However, the very mention of him to my niece, as one of the passengers on board—­ medicine, miraculous!  She was up in half an hour, out pacing the deck before evening, hardly leaning on my arm, and the colour positively beginning to show on her cheeks again.  He fled, of coarse.  I had prepared her for his eccentricities.  Next morning she was out by herself.  In the afternoon Lord Ormont strode up to us his—­military step—­and most courteously requested the honour of an introduction.  I had broken the ice at last; from that moment he was cordiality itself, until—­I will not say, until he had called her his own—­a few little misunderstandings!—­not with his countess.  You see, a resident aunt is