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 Lorimer would be a treasure to us just now; but, as I said, I suppose the Teviots might hear of it. What do you think, Stuart, could I ask him? "

"Certainly not," said Colonel Stuart, who was alarmed at such an instance of want of tact and feeling; "besides, he is a vulgar dog at best."

"Oh, well! then that settles the point; and besides, Teviot is such a friend of mine, only I wish we could detach him from the G. politics. Mr. G. is just the sort of man to give him a peerage, if he loses his own. Such a job! However, I will write and ask the Sheffields; his attack on G. at that agricultural meeting was wonderfully clever."

And thus ended Lady Portmore's interest in one of her hundred dear friends. Even Mrs. Douglas felt more in her grumbling, unrefined way. Illness, independent of its merits as a destroyer of good looks, had always a certain charm for her. She was an excellent nurse, and now that the Teviots were in adversity, she warmed heartily to them; sent every day to the Castle for the latest accounts from Southampton; and though she continued to pity Lady Eskdale for having married her daughters so ill, she was unfeignedly grieved for Helen, and would have gone to Southampton herself if she could have been allowed to assist in attending on Lord Teviot.