“Nothing loth would he be to take it, miss!  Though says he, ’Don’t you let my mother know I have tracked her, nurse,’ says he.  ’It is plain enough why she gives out that I am not to go near my uncle, and if she guessed where I had been, she would have some of her fancies.’  ‘Now your Honour, my dear,’ says I, ’you’ll excuse your old nurse, but her sister put her in my charge, and though I bless Heaven that you are no young rake, yet you will be bringing trouble untold on her and hers if you go down there a courting of her unbeknownst.’  ‘No danger of that, nurse,’ says he; ’why there’s a she-dragon down there (meaning Mrs. Aylward) that was ready to drive me out of my own house when I did but speak of waiting to see her.’”

“No, I am glad he will not come again.  Yet it makes his uncle happy to see him.  I will keep out of the way if he does.”

“Right too, miss.  A young lady never loses by discretion.”

“Oh, do not speak in—­in that way,” said Aurelia, blushing at the implication.  “Besides, he is going home with my Lady to dear Carminster.”

“No, no, he remains with his regiment in town, unless he rides down later when he can have his leave of absence, and my Lady is at the Bath.  He will not if he can help it, for he is dead set against the young lady they want to marry him to, and she is to be there.  What! you have not heard?  It is my Lady Arabella, sister to that there Colonel as is more about our house than I could wish.  She is not by the same mother as him and my Lord Aresfield.  Her father married a great heiress for his second wife, whose father had made a great fortune by victualling the army in the war time.  Not that this Dowager Countess, as they call her, is a bit like the real quality, so that it is a marvel how my Lady can put up with her; only money-bags will make anything go down, more’s the pity, and my Lady is pressed, you see, with her losses at play.  It was about this match that Sir Amyas was sent down to Battlefield, the Countess’s place in Monmouthshire, when he came to Carminster last summer, and his body servant, Mr. Grey, that has been about him from a child, told me all about it.  This Lady Belle, as they call her, is only about fourteen, and such a spoilt little vixen, that they say nobody has been able to teach her so much as to read, for her mother, the Dowager, never would have her crossed in anything, and now she has got too headstrong for any of ’em.  Mr. Grey said dressing for supper, they heard the most horrid screams, and thought some one must be killed at least.  Sir Amyas was for running out, but at the door they met a wench who only said, ’Bless you! that’s nought.  It’s only my young lady in her tantrums!’ So in the servants’ hall, Grey heard it was all because her mamma wouldn’t let her put on two suits of pearls and di’monds both together.  She lies on her back, and rolls and kicks till she gets her own way; and by what the servants say, the Dowager heerself ain’t much