A mother can of course devote herself to her child;--but when a portion of the devotion must be given to the preservation of material interests there is less of tenderness in it.

Don't you think so ?" "No doubt," said Lord Fawn;--"no doubt." But he had not followed her, and was still thinking of his own strategy.

"It's a comfort, of course, to know that one's child is provided for." "Oh, yes;--but they tell me the poor little dear will have forty thousand a year when he's of age; and when I look at him in his little bed, and press him in my arms, and think of all that money, I almost wish that his father had been a poor plain gentleman." Then the handkerchief was put to her eyes, and Lord Fawn had a moment in which to collect himself.
"Ah!--I myself am a poor man;--for my rank I mean." "A man with your position, Lord Fawn, and your talents and genius for business, can never be poor." "My father's property was all Irish, you know." "Was it indeed ?" "And he was an Irish peer, till Lord Melbourne gave him an English peerage." "An Irish peer, was he ?" Lizzie understood nothing of this, but presumed that an Irish peer was a peer who had not sufficient money to live upon.

Lord Fawn, however, was endeavouring to describe his own history in as few words as possible.
"He was then made Lord Fawn of Richmond, in the peerage of the United Kingdom.

Fawn Court, you know, belonged to my mother's father before my mother's marriage.