"In which she was interested?"
"No, indeed! I was selfish enough to lay before her a matter in which my own interests were alone concerned."
"Ah!" said Lady Hetherington, with a sigh of relief, "I was afraid it might be some business in which she would have to involve herself for other people, and really she is such an extraordinary woman, constituting herself chaperone to two young women who may be very well in their way, I dare say, but whom nobody ever heard of, and doing such odd things, but--however, that's all right."
Her ladyship subsiding, his lordship here had a chance of expressing his delight at his ex-secretary's advancement, which he did warmly, but in his own peculiar way. So Joyce had gone into Parliament; right, quite right, but wrong side, hey, hey? Radicals and those sort of fellows, hey? Republic and that sort of thing! Like all young men, make mistakes, hey, but know better soon, and come round. Live to see him in the Carlton yet. Knew where he picked up those atrocious doctrines--didn't mind his calling them atrocious, hey, hey?--from Byrne; strange man, clever man, deuced clever, well read, and all that kind of thing, but desperate free-thinker. Thistlewood, Wolfestone, and that kind of thing. Never live to see him in the Carlton. No, of course not; not the place for him. Recollect the Chronicles? Ah, of course; deuced interestin', all that stuff that--that I wrote then, wasn't it? Had not made much progress since. So taken up with farmin' and that kind of thing; must take him into the park before he left, and show him some alterations just going to be made, which would be an immense improvement, immense imp---- Oh, here was Lady Caroline!
What did that idiotic footman mean by saying he thought Lady Caroline was not well? She came in looking radiant, and took her seat at the table with all her usual composure. Lady Hetherington looked at her in surprise, and said--
"Anything the matter, Caroline?"
"The matter, Margaret! Nothing in the world. Why?"
"You told Mr. Joyce to come in to luncheon without you, and Thomas said you had gone upstairs. I feared you had one of your faint attacks."
"Thanks for your sympathy. No! I knew Mr. Joyce would be leaving almost directly after luncheon, and I had a letter to write which I want him to be good enough to take to town for me. So I seized the only chance I had and ran off to write it."
"Deuced odd that!" said Lord Hetherington; "here's British post-office, greatest institution in the country. Rowland Hill, and that kind of thing; take your letters everywhere for a penny--penny, by Jove, and yet you'll always find women want fellows to make postmen of themselves, and carry their letters themselves."