"Because the name was carefully erased from the few possessions my poor father left behind him. So now I have let the matter drop," added Cecil, with a bitter laugh, "as it is sometimes a mistake to look up back-numbers in the colonies; they are not invariably pleasant reading."
Here conversation was interrupted by Lady Silverhampton's voice calling her friends to lunch; and Cecil and Elisabeth had to join the others.
"If any of you are tired of life," said her ladyship, as they sat down, "I wish you'd try some of this lobster mayonnaise that my new cook has made, and report on it. To me it looks the most promising prescription for death by torture."
"O bid me die, and I will dare
E'en mayonnaise for thee,"
exclaimed Lord Bobby, manfully helping himself.
And then the talk flowed on as pleasantly and easily as the river, until it was time to land again and return to town. But for the rest of the day, and for many a day afterward, a certain uncomfortable suspicion haunted Elisabeth, which she could not put away from her, try as she would; a suspicion that, after all, her throne was not as firmly fixed as she had hoped and had learned to believe.
[CHAPTER XV]
LITTLE WILLIE
He that beginneth may not end,
And he that breaketh can not mend.