Indeed, the Cottage was now too large for the family; for the Earl was still unmarried, and all his sisters had contracted splendid alliances except the youngest, Lady Constance Carbury, a maiden of twenty-two, with a thin face and slight angular figure, who was still on her mother's hands.

The illustrious matches made by her sisters had, in fact, been secured by extravagant dowering, which had left nothing for poor Lady Constance except a miserable three hundred pounds a year, at which paltry figure no man had as yet offered to take her.

The Countess (Dowager) habitually assumed that Marmaduke Lind ardently desired the hand of his cousin; and Constance herself supported tacitly this view; but the Earl was apt to become restive when it was put forward, though he altogether declined to improve his sister's pecuniary position, having already speculated quite heavily enough in brothers-in-law.
In the August following the Wandsworth concert Lord Carbury began to take his electrical laboratory with such intensified seriousness that he flatly refused to entertain any visitors until the 12th, and held fast to his determination in spite of his mother's threat to leave the house, alleging, with a laugh, that he had got hold of a discovery with money in it at last.

But he felt at such a disadvantage after this incredible statement that he hastened to explain that his objection to visitors did not apply to relatives who would be sufficiently at home at Towers Cottage to require no attention from him.

Under the terms of this capitulation Marian, as universal favorite, was invited; and since there was no getting Marian down without Elinor, she was invited too, in spite of the Countess's strong dislike for her, a sentiment which she requited with a pungent mixture of detestation and contempt.