"And don't you believe what I say?" demanded Lizzie.
"It's all true, no doubt, that the diamonds are gone."
"Indeed it is."
"But I don't know much about Lord George de Bruce Carruthers."
"He's the brother of a marquis, anyway," said Lizzie, who thought that she might thus best answer the mother of a Scotch Earl.
"I remember when he was plain George Carruthers, running about the streets of Aberdeen, and it was well with him when his shoes weren't broken at the toes and down at heel. He earned his bread then, such as it was;—nobody knows how he gets it now. Why does he call himself de Bruce, I wonder?"
"Because his godfathers and godmothers gave him that name when he was made a child of Christ, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven," said Lizzie, ever so pertly.
"I don't believe a bit of it."
"I wasn't there to see, Aunt Susanna; and therefore I can't swear to it. That's his name in all the peerages, and I suppose they ought to know."
"And what does Lord George de Bruce say about the diamonds?"