But there arose to dear Lady Milborough a great trouble out of this quarrel, irrespective of the absolute horror of the separation of a young husband from his young wife.  And the excess of her trouble on this head was great proof of the real goodness of her heart.  For, in this matter, the welfare of Trevelyan himself was not concerned but rather that of the Rowley family.  Now the Rowleys had not given Lady Milborough any special reason for loving them.  When she had first heard that her dear young friend Louis was going to marry a girl from the Mandarins, she had been almost in despair.  It was her opinion that had he properly understood his own position, he would have promoted his welfare by falling in love with the daughter of some English country gentleman or some English peer, to which honour, with his advantages, Lady Milborough thought that he might have aspired.  Nevertheless, when the girl from the Mandarins had been brought home as Mrs Trevelyan, Lady Milborough had received her with open arms—­had received even the sister-in-law with arms partly open.  Had either of them shown any tendency to regard her as a mother, she would have showered motherly cares upon them.  For Lady Milborough was like an old hen, in her capacity for taking many under her wings.  The two sisters had hardly done more than bear with her, Nora, indeed, bearing with her more graciously than Mrs Trevelyan; and in return, even for this, the old dowager was full of motherly regard.  Now she knew well that Mr Glascock was over head and ears in love with Nora Rowley.  It only wanted the slightest management and the easiest discretion to bring him on his knees, with an offer of his hand.  And, then, how much that hand contained, how much, indeed, as compared with that other hand, which was to be given in return, and which was to speak the truth completely empty!  Mr Glascock was the heir to a peer, was the heir to a rich peer, was the heir to a very, very old peer.  He was in Parliament.  The world spoke well of him.  He was not, so to say, by any means an old man himself.  He was good-tempered, reasonable, easily led, and yet by no means despicable.  On all subjects connected with land, he held an opinion that was very much respected, and was supposed to be a thoroughly good specimen of an upper-class Englishman.  Here was a suitor!  But it was not to be supposed that such a man as Mr Glascock would be so violently in love as to propose to a girl whose nearest known friend and female relation was misbehaving herself?

Only they who have closely watched the natural uneasinesses of human hens can understand how great was Lady Milborough’s anxiety on this occasion.  Marriage to her was a thing always delightful to contemplate.  Though she had never been sordidly a matchmaker, the course of the world around her had taught her to regard men as fish to be caught, and girls as the anglers who ought to catch them.  Or, rather, could her mind have been accurately analysed, it would have been found