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WILD MARGARET, . 17
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ticular servants. Excepting Mr. Stibbings, the butler,
and Mr. Larkhall, his valet, and the footmen, none of us
see anything of his lordship.”
‘He is quite like a king, then?’ said the girl musingly.
“Quite,” assented the old lady approvingly; ‘quite
like a king, as you say; and everybody in Leyton Ferrers
regards him as one. Why, the queen herself couldn’t be
- more looked up to or feared!”
The girl pondered over this. You don’t meet many
earls and dukes in the National Art Schools, and this one
possessed an atmosphere of novelty for Margaret.
‘* And does he live here all alone?’ she asked.
‘* All alone; yes.”’
“Tn this great place? How lonely he must be!”
‘No, my dear,’ said the old lady. ‘Great people are
athe lonely ; they are quite—quite different to us humble
olks.’
Margaret smiled to herself at the naive assertion.
I thought he would have had some relations to live with
him. Hasn’t he any sons—children?”
Mrs. Hale shook her head.
“No, no children! There was a son, but he died. There
is a nephew, Lord Blair Leyton, but he and the earl don’t
agree, and he has never been here, though, of course, he
will come into the property when the earl dies, which
won’t be for many a long year, I hope.”
‘‘ Blair Leyton! and he’s a lord too—”’
‘A viscount,’’ said the old lady. ‘‘I don’t like to speak
" ill of a gentleman, especially one I don’t know, but 1 am
afraid his young lordship is—is’’—she looked round for a
word—"* is a very wicked young man, my dear.”’
‘‘How do you know?” asked Margaret, nestling into the
comfortable chair to listen at her ease.
‘Well, Mr. Stibbings has spoken of him. .Mr. Stib-
bings—a perfect gentleman, my dear—is good enough to
drop in and take a cup of tea sometimes, and he has told
ie about young Lord Blair! You see, he has been in the
family a great many years, and knows all its history. He
’ gays that the earl and the young nephew never did get on.
together, and that the young man is, oh, very wild indeed,
my dear! The earl and he have only met two or three
times, and then they quarreled—quarreled dreadfully. I
daresay the earl feels the loss of his son, and that makes
it hard for him to get on with Lord Blair. But he is really
a very wicked young man, Iam sorry to say. ”
‘What does he do?’ asked Margaret. .
‘The old lady looked rather puzzled how to describe a
young man’s wickedness to an mnocent girl.
BA en ets