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274 "I should be glad to do so for your happiness," replied his uncle, in a tone of earnest affection: "I always loved you, but the last few months have drawn us so much together. There is a tie between us nothing can break." "Nothing, indeed!" replied Norbourne, taking his uncle's hand. Both were silent for a few minutes, when Lord Norbourne resumed the conversation. "But you do not ask me how, when, and where?—have you no curiosity to hear where I met with Miss Churchill?" Norbourne smiled, and his uncle continued. "Of all places in the world, at Sir Robert Walpole's villa at Chelsea." His listener looked astonished, and added, in a whisper,—"You call her Miss Churchill; how is it that you know her by that name rather than her present one?" "Why, Miss Churchill is her present name; but I forget that you know nothing of her history. That singularly foolish old lady, her grandmother, got up a sort of caricature conspiracy, and Miss Churchill was to have