I have been, it seems, so unfortunate as to offend Lady Lydiard (how, I cannot imagine); and the all-powerful influence of this noble lady is now used against the struggling artist who is united to you by the sacred ties of kindred.

Be it so.

I can fight my way upwards, my Lord, as other men have done before me.

A day may yet come when the throng of carriages waiting at the door of the fashionable portrait-painter will include her Ladyship's vehicle, and bring me the tardy expression of her Ladyship's regret.

I refer you, my Lord Lydiard, to that day!" Having read Mr.Tollmidge's formidable assertions relating to herself for the second time, Lady Lydiard's meditations came to an abrupt end.
She rose, took the letters in both hands to tear them up, hesitated, and threw them back in the cabinet drawer in which she had discovered them, among other papers that had not been arranged since Lord Lydiard's death.
"The idiot!" said her Ladyship, thinking of Mr.Tollmidge, "I never even heard of him, in my husband's lifetime; I never even knew that he was really related to Lord Lydiard, till I found his letters.