The news of the verdict was communicated the same evening to Lady Anna,—as to whose name there could now no longer be any dispute. "I congratulate you, Lady Anna," said the Serjeant, holding her hand, "that everything as far as this trial is concerned has gone just as we could wish."

"We owe it all to you," said the girl.

"Not at all. My work has been very easy. In fact I have some feeling of regret that I have not been placed in a position that would enable me to earn my wages. The case was too good,—so that a poor aspiring lawyer has not been able to add to his reputation. But as far as you are concerned, my dear, everything has gone as you should wish. You are now a very wealthy heiress, and the great duty devolves upon you of disposing of your wealth in a fitting manner." Lady Anna understood well what was meant, and was silent. Even when she was alone, her success did not make her triumphant. She could anticipate that the efforts of all her friends to make her false to her word would be redoubled. Unless she could see Daniel Thwaite, it would be impossible that she should not be conquered.

The Serjeant told his wife the promise which he had made on her behalf, and she, of course, undertook to go to Keppel Street on the following morning. "You had better bring her here," said the Serjeant. Mrs. Bluestone remarked that that might be sooner said than done. "She\'ll be glad of an excuse to come," answered the Serjeant. "On such an occasion as this, of course they must see each other. Something must be arranged about the property. In a month or two, when she is of age, she will have the undisputed right to do what she pleases with about three hundred thousand pounds. It is a most remarkable position for a young girl who has never yet had the command of a penny, and who professes that she is engaged to marry a working tailor. Of course her mother must see her."

Mrs. Bluestone did call in Keppel Street, and sat with the Countess a long time, undergoing a perfect hailstorm of passion. For a long time Lady Lovel declared that she would never see her daughter again till the girl had given a solemn promise that she would not marry Daniel Thwaite. "Love her! Of course I love her. She is all that I have in the world. But of what good is my love to me, if she disgraces me? She has disgraced me already. When she could bring herself to tell her cousin that she was engaged to this man, we were already disgraced. When she once allowed the man to speak to her in that strain, without withering him with her scorn, she disgraced us both. For what have I done it all, if this is to be the end of it?" But at last she assented and promised that she would come. No;—it would not be necessary to send a carriage for her. The habits of her own life need not be at all altered because she was now a Countess beyond dispute, and also wealthy. She would be content to live as she had ever lived. It had gone on too long for her to desire personal comfort,—luxury for herself, or even social rank. The only pleasure that she had anticipated, the only triumph that she desired, was to be found in the splendour of her child. She would walk to Bedford Square, and then walk back to her lodgings in Keppel Street. She wanted no carriage.

Early on the following day there was heard the knock at the door which Lady Anna had been taught to expect. The coming visit had been discussed in all its bearings, and it had been settled that Mrs. Bluestone should be with the daughter when the mother arrived. It was thought that in this way the first severity of the Countess would be mitigated, and that the chance of some agreement between them might be increased. Both the Serjeant and Mrs. Bluestone now conceived that the young lady had a stronger will of her own than might have been expected from her looks, her language, and her manners. She had not as yet yielded an inch, though she would not argue the matter at all when she was told that it was her positive duty to abandon the tailor. She would sit quite silent; and if silence does give consent, she consented to this doctrine. Mrs. Bluestone, with a diligence which was equalled only by her good humour, insisted on the misery which must come upon her young friend should she quarrel with the Countess, and with all the Lovels,—on the unfitness of the tailor, and the impossibility that such a marriage should make a lady happy,—on the sacred duty which Lady Anna\'s rank imposed upon her to support her order, and on the general blessedness of a well-preserved and exclusive aristocracy. "I don\'t mean to say that nobly born people are a bit better than commoners," said Mrs. Bluestone. "Neither I nor my children have a drop of noble blood in our veins. It is not that. But God Almighty has chosen that there should be different ranks to carry out His purposes, and we have His word to tell us that we should all do our duties in that state of life to which it has pleased Him to call us." The excellent lady was somewhat among the clouds in her theology, and apt to mingle the different sources of religious instruction from which she was wont to draw lessons for her own and her children\'s guidance; but she meant to say that the proper state of life for an earl\'s daughter could not include an attachment to a tailor; and Lady Anna took it as it was meant. The nobly born young lady did not in heart deny the truth of the lesson;—but she had learned another lesson, and she did not know how to make the two compatible. That other lesson taught her to believe that she ought to be true to her word;—that she specially ought to be true to one who had ever been specially true to her. And latterly there had grown upon her a feeling less favourable to the Earl than that which he had inspired when she first saw him, and which he had increased when they were together at Yoxham. It is hard to say why the Earl had ceased to charm her, or by what acts or words he had lowered himself in her eyes. He was as handsome as ever, as much like a young Apollo, as gracious in his manner, and as gentle in his gait. And he had been constant to her. Perhaps it was that she had expected that one so godlike should have ceased to adore a woman who had degraded herself to the level of a tailor, and that, so conceiving, she had begun to think that his motives might be merely human, and perhaps sordid. He ought to have abstained and seen her no more after she had owned her own degradation. But she said nothing of all this to Mrs. Bluestone. She made no answer to the sermons preached to her. She certainly said no word tending to make that lady think that the sermons had been of any avail. "She looks as soft as butter," Mrs. Bluestone said that morning to her husband; "but she is obstinate as a pig all the time."

"I suppose her father was the same way before her," said the Serjeant, "and God knows her mother is obstinate enough."

When the Countess was shown into the room Lady Anna was trembling with fear and emotion. Lady Lovel, during the last few weeks, since her daughter had seen her, had changed the nature of her dress. Hitherto, for years past, she had worn a brown stuff gown, hardly ever varying even the shade of the sombre colour,—so that her daughter had perhaps never seen her otherwise clad. No woman that ever breathed was less subject to personal vanity than had been the so-called Countess who lived in the little cottage outside Keswick. Her own dress had been as nothing to her, and in the days of her close familiarity with old Thomas Thwaite she had rebuked her friend when he had besought her to attire herself in silk. "We\'ll go into Keswick and get Anna a new ribbon," she would say, "and that will be grandeur enough for her and me too." In this brown dress she had come up to London, and so she had been clothed when her daughter last saw her. But now she wore a new, full, black silk dress, which, plain as it was, befitted her rank and gave an increased authority to her commanding figure. Lady Anna trembled all the more, and her heart sank still lower within her, because her mother no longer wore the old brown gown. When the Countess entered the room she took no immediate notice of Mrs. Bluestone, but went up to her child and kissed her. "I am comforted, Anna, in seeing you once again," she said.

"Dear, dearest mamma!"

"You have heard, I suppose, that the trial has been decided in your favour?"

"In yours, mamma."

"We have explained it all to her, Lady Lovel, as well as we could. The Serjeant yesterday evening gave us a little history of what occurred. It seems to have been quite a triumph."

"It may become a triumph," said the Countess;—"a triumph so complete and glorious that I shall desire nothing further in this world. It has been my work to win the prize; it is for her to wear it,—if she will do so."

"I hope you will both live to enjoy it many years," said Mrs. Bluestone. "You will have much to say to each other, and I will leave you now. We shall have lunch, Lady Lovel, at half-past one, and I hope that you will join us."

The............