"Yes I do," said Cecil, with a fresh access of color, and a low, soft laugh.
Lady Marabout gasped again for breath:
"General Ormsby!" was all she could ejaculate.
"General Ormsby? What of him? Did you ever know uncle Johnnie refuse to please me? And if my money be to interfere with my happiness, and not promote it, as I conceive it its duty and purpose to do, why, I am of age in July, you know, and I shall make a deed of gift of it all to the Soldiers' Home or the Wellington College, and there is only one person who will care for me then."
Lady Cecil was quite capable of carrying her threat into execution, and Lady Cecil had her own way accordingly, as she had had it from her babyhood.
"I shall never hold up my head again! And what a horrible triumph for Anne Hautton! I am always the victim—always!" said Lady Marabout, that day two months, when the last guest at Cecil Ormsby's wedding déjeûner had rolled away from the house. "A girl who might have married anybody, Philip; she refused twenty offers this season—she did, indeed! It is heart-breaking, say what you like; you needn't laugh, it is. Why did I offer them Fernditton for this month, you say, if I didn't countenance the alliance? Nonsense! that is nothing to the purpose. Of course, I seemed to countenance it to a degree, for Cecil's sake, and I admire Chandos Cheveley, I confess (at least I should do, if I didn't dislike his class on principle); but, say what you like, Philip, it is the most terrible thing that could have happened for me. Those men ought to be labelled, or muzzled, or done something with, and not be let loose on society as they are. He has a noble nature, you say. I don't say anything against his nature! She worships him? Well, I know she does. What is that to the point? He will make her happy? I am sure he will. He has the gentlest way with her possible. But how does that console me? Think what you feel when an outsider, as you call it, beats all the favorites, upsets all your betting-books, and carries off the Doncaster Cup, and then realize, if you've any humanity in you, what we feel under such a trial as this is to me! Only to think what Anne Hautton will always say!"
Lady Marabout is not the only person to whom the first thought, the most dreaded ghost, the ghastliest skeleton, the direst aggravation, the sharpest dagger-thrust, under all troubles, is the remembrance of that one omnipotent Ogre—"Qu'en dira-t-on?"
"Laugh at her, mother," counselled Carruthers; and, amis lecteurs, I pass on his advice to you as the best and sole bowstring for strangling the ogre in question, which is the grimmest we have in all Bogeydom.
