"Well, Mr. Stibbings has spoken of him. Mr. Stibbings—a perfect gentleman, my dear—is good enough to drop in and take a cup of tea sometimes, and he has told me about young Lord Blair! You see, he has been in the family a great many years, and knows all its history. He says that the earl and the young nephew never did get on together, and that the young man is, oh, very wild indeed, my dear! The earl and he have only met two or three times, and then they quarreled—quarreled dreadfully. I daresay the earl feels the loss of his son, and that makes it hard for him to get on with Lord Blair. But he is really a very wicked young man, I am sorry to say."
"What does he do?" asked Margaret.
The old lady looked rather puzzled how to describe a young man's wickedness to an innocent girl.
"Well, my dear, it would be easier, perhaps, to say what he doesn't do!" she said at last.
Margaret laughed softly.
"Poor young man," she said gently. "It must be bad to be so wicked!"
The old lady shook her head severely.
"I don't know why you pity him, my dear," she said.
"Oh, I don't know," said the girl, slowly. "Perhaps some people can't help being bad, you know, grandma! Oh, here are my things coming! now I can show you one of my pictures!" and she jumped up gleefully, and commenced unfastening the brown-paper parcel. "I did think of carrying it, but I am glad I didn't, for it was warm, and I met with an unpleasant adventure on the road, when the parcel might have been in the way. Oh, I didn't tell you, grandma! I saw such a terrible fight—a fight! think of it—as I came here."