“I occasionally meet on my staircase here,” drawls Volumnia, whose thoughts perhaps are already hopping up it to bed, after a long evening of very desultory talk, “one of the prettiest girls, I think, that I ever saw in my life.”

“A PROTEGEE of my Lady’s,” observes Sir Leicester.

“I thought so.  I felt sure that some uncommon eye must have picked that girl out.  She really is a marvel.  A dolly sort of beauty perhaps,” says Miss Volumnia, reserving her own sort, “but in its way, perfect; such bloom I never saw!”

Sir Leicester, with his magnificent glance of displeasure at the rouge, appears to say so too.

“Indeed,” remarks my Lady languidly, “if there is any uncommon eye in the case, it is Mrs. Rouncewell’s, and not mine.  Rosa is her discovery.”

“Your maid, I suppose?”

“No.  My anything; pet—­secretary—­messenger—­I don’t know what.”

“You like to have her about you, as you would like to have a flower, or a bird, or a picture, or a poodle—­no, not a poodle, though—­or anything else that was equally pretty?” says Volumnia, sympathizing.  “Yes, how charming now!  And how well that delightful old soul Mrs. Rouncewell is looking.  She must be an immense age, and yet she is as active and handsome!  She is the dearest friend I have, positively!”

Sir Leicester feels it to be right and fitting that the housekeeper of Chesney Wold should be a remarkable person.  Apart from that, he has a real regard for Mrs. Rouncewell and likes to hear her praised.  So he says, “You are right, Volumnia,” which Volumnia is extremely glad to hear.

“She has no daughter of her own, has she?”

“Mrs. Rouncewell?  No, Volumnia.  She has a son.  Indeed, she had two.”

My Lady, whose chronic malady of boredom has been sadly aggravated by Volumnia this evening, glances wearily towards the candlesticks and heaves a noiseless sigh.

“And it is a remarkable example of the confusion into which the present age has fallen; of the obliteration of landmarks, the opening of floodgates, and the uprooting of distinctions,” says Sir Leicester with stately gloom, “that I have been informed by Mr. Tulkinghorn that Mrs. Rouncewell’s son has been invited to go into Parliament.”

Miss Volumnia utters a little sharp scream.

“Yes, indeed,” repeats Sir Leicester.  “Into Parliament.”

“I never heard of such a thing!  Good gracious, what is the man?” exclaims Volumnia.

“He is called, I believe—­an—­ironmaster.”  Sir Leicester says it slowly and with gravity and doubt, as not being sure but that he is called a lead-mistress or that the right word may be some other word expressive of some other relationship to some other metal.

Volumnia utters another little scream.

“He has declined the proposal, if my information from Mr. Tulkinghorn be correct, as I have no doubt it is.  Mr. Tulkinghorn being always correct and exact; still that does not,” says Sir Leicester, “that does not lessen the anomaly, which is fraught with strange considerations—­startling considerations, as it appears to me.”