Take  good  care  to  let  her  understand  that  I  want  nothing
from  her."
So  he  wrote —

Dear  Lady  Stelfox — Having  occasion  to  he  in  Londony
on  business  next  week,  as  you  are  the  only  immediate
relative  I  have  alive,  it  will  give  me  pleasure  to  call  on  you
if  you  kindly  say  whether  a  visit  from  me  ivill  he  perfectly
agreeable  to  you.     Very  truly  yours — Ayitonio  D'Oyly.
The  answer  came  by  return  of  post  in  a  neat  lady's  hand.
Dear  Sir.  Lady  Sielfox  directs  me  to  say  in  answer  to
yours  that  a  visit  from  you  will  he  perfectly  agreeable  to
her. — She  is  in  bettveen  11  a.m.  and  2  p.m.  Very  truly
yours,  Isabel  Perceval.
It  was  with  a  distinct  feeling  of  repugnance  that  Mr.
D'Oyly  went  about  keeping  the  engagement  he  had  thus
committed  himself  to.  His  way,  however,  was  to  give
work  disagreeable  to  him  the  precedence,  and  accordingly
he  determined  on  getting  Lady  Stelfox  off  his  hands  before
going  near  Claud  Winthorpe  to  do  what  involved  no  un-
pleasantness for  him,  transact  business.
He  had  noted  that  the  name  of  his  aunt's  Balham
residence,  liilldavin,  was  Irish  and  familiar  to  him,  but  he
found  nothing  Irish  about  it.  Its  air  of  bourgeois  wealth,
sedate  and  unostentatious,  was  novel  to  him,  brought  up  in
a  land  of  palaces  and  hovels.  The  English  passer-by
would  say  to  himself  that  the  tenant  of  Kilidavin  had,  at
least,  three  thousand  a  year,  and  spent  two  thousand,  and
if  he  cared  to  speculate  farther  on  the  subject  would  add
that  said  tenant  was  a  sensible  person  who  enjoyed  a
fortune  made  in  trade,  avoiding  any  offensive  display  of
wealth,  and  calmly  indifferent  to  social  distinction.
