"Be seated, pray." She continued to watch them with her baleful glance.

"We have heard fine things from you, sir, of what you have both done for my Lord Rotherby," she gibed, mocking him with the spirit of his half-jest.

"Shall I tell you more precisely what 'tis he owes you ?" "Can there be more ?" quoth Mr.Caryll, smiling so amiably that he must have disarmed a Gorgon.
Her ladyship ignored him.

"He owes it to you both that you have estranged him from his father, set up a breach between them that is never like to be healed.

'Tis what he owes you." "Does he not owe it, rather, to his abandoned ways ?" asked Hortensia, in a calm, clear voice, bravely giving back her ladyship look for look.
"Abandoned ways ?" screamed the countess.