"I'll take care that you shall like it, Lord Giblet. I think I may boast that when I put my wits to work I can make my house agreeable. I'm very fond of young people, but there's no one I love as I do Olivia Green. There isn't a young woman in London has so much to be loved for. Of course you'll come. What day shall we name?"
"I don't think I could name a day."
"Let us say the 27th. That will give you nearly a week at the grouse first. Be with us to dinner on the 27th."
"Well,—perhaps I will."
"Of course you will. I shall write to Olivia to-night, and I daresay you will do so also."
Lord Giblet, when he was let to go, tried to suck consolation from the £10,000. Though he was still resolved, he almost believed that Mrs. Montacute Jones would conquer him. Write to Olivia to-night! Lying, false old woman! Of course she knew that there was hardly a lady in England to whom it was so little likely that he should write as to Miss Patmore Green. How could an old woman, with one foot in the grave, be so wicked? And why should she persecute him? What had he done to her? Olivia Green was not her daughter, or even her niece. "So you are going to Killancodlem?" Mrs. Houghton said to him that afternoon.
"She has asked me," said Lord Giblet.
"It's simply the most comfortable house in all Scotland, and they tell me some of the best deer-stalking. Everybody likes to get to Killancodlem. Don't you love old Mrs. Jones?"
"Charming old woman!"
"And such a friend! If she once takes to you she never drops you."