"But that must have been true; he was out, you may depend on it."
"I saw him at the window, my lord," said Mr. Winsley, taking a pinch of snuff.
"Oh, the deuce! I'm in for it," thought Lumley.—"Very strange, indeed! but how can you account for it? Ah, perhaps the health of Lady Vargrave—she was so very delicate then, and my poor uncle lived for her—you know that he left all his fortune to Miss Cameron?"
"Miss Cameron! Who is she, my lord?"
"Why, his daughter-in-law; Lady Vargrave was a widow,—a Mrs. Cameron."
"Mrs. Cam—I remember now,—they put Cameron in the newspapers; but I thought it was a mistake. But, perhaps" (added Winsley, with a sneer of peculiar malignity),—"perhaps, when your worthy uncle thought of being a peer, he did not like to have it known that he married so much beneath him."
"You quite mistake, my dear sir; my uncle never denied that Mrs. Cameron was a lady of no fortune or connections,—widow to some poor Scotch gentleman, who died I think in India."
"He left her very ill off, poor thing; but she had a great deal of merit, and worked hard; she taught my girls to play—"
"Your girls! did Mrs. Cameron ever reside in C——-?"
"To be sure; but she was then called Mrs. Butler—just as pretty a name to my fancy."