On the last evening but one, before Miriam and I were to go away together, we were sitting round the tea-table in the verandah. Mrs. Eppstein was with us, and Mr. Perry had said that he would be home at five o'clock, but had not yet appeared. But we heard the wheels of the carriage just as Mr. Blother had brought out the kettle, with the intimation that we had better begin now; and Mr. Perry came out to us directly, still wearing his tall hat, which Lord Arthur usually relieved him of in the hall.

It was evident that he had news for us, and to judge by his face, on which sat an expression combined of jubilance and modesty, it was good news.

"Blother, old friend," said Mr. Perry, "don't go. I have something to tell you."

Then he went up to Mrs. Perry, took her hand in his, kissed it, and said: "Good evening, my lady."

Mrs. Perry exclaimed at this form of address, and after a short pause, during which Mr. Perry removed his hat and looked rather sheepish, Mr. Blother said joyfully: "Ah, I see. At last they have recognised your value, and have knighted you. Three cheers for Sir Samuel and Lady Perry!"

Mr. Perry held up his hand, and the cheers died on our lips. "You are on the right track, Blother," he said, "but you have not gone far enough. You should have said: 'Three cheers for Lord and Lady Magnolia!' which is the title I have decided to adopt, subject to her ladyship's approval. My dear, a great and unexpected honour has been conferred on me. They have offered me a peerage, contingent on my accepting or refusing it at once. I have accepted, thinking you would wish it for the sake of the children, and my patent was handed to me this afternoon."

We all congratulated the new peer heartily, concealing our surprise at the honour having been conferred on him, and saying that it was only what ought to have been done long ago.

When Mr. Blother had left us to carry the news into the servants' quarters, Mr. Perry, or rather Lord Magnolia, told us all about it.

"It is the reward of my life-long service in the cause of the downtrodden," he said, "and dear Edward will be gratified to know that the punishment so harshly inflicted upon him has had something to do with it. I was given to understand that the Government much regrets the necessity of having had to prosecute him, and, as a good deal of feeling has been aroused against them in consequence of that action, they hoped that this honour, conferred upon me so promptly, might remove some of that feeling, as showing that, whatever may be thought of them, they are really on our side. Therefore, in one way, I may be said to be doing as much for them as they are doing for me, which made it, perhaps, easier to accept the unlooked-for honour. I did not do so without some demur. I said that I should not consent to be a mere puppet peer,[34] and they assured me that nothing of the sort was intended. They also assured me in the handsomest way that the offer of a peerage to me had long been under consideration, and the only difficulty about it had been that my way of living might bring ridicule on the nobility generally. I told them at once that my work was far too dear to me to be given up, and that if the stipulation was that I should leave my friends amongst the rich, and go back to live amongst the poor, I could not consent to it. They said that no such stipulation would be made, and that removed my last objection."

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What his other objections had been, Lord Magnolia did not tell us. It was obvious that he had not had the least idea of such an honour ever being conferred on him, and was quite agreeably stirred by it.

"I only wish that dear Edward were here to share our gratification," he said, "but it will not be long now before we have him with us again. My dear, I think you might write him a note to tell him what has happened. To-morrow will be his day for receiving letters, and do not forget to address him as the Honourable Edward Perry."

"I must go home at once and tell Herman," said Mrs. Eppstein. "It was a step up for him to marry me, but he little thought that he would be marrying into the peerage."

"Shall I be Lady Mollie, like Susan and Cynthia?" enquired Lord Magnolia's younger daughter.

"You will be the Honourable Mollie, my love," replied that nobleman. "You are all now the Honourable. But you must not think too much of that. These distinctions are nothing in themselves, and you must not forget that it is worth that counts, and that titles are usually given as a reward to those who are the last to desire them for themselves. It is so in this case. Nothing will be changed here, and we shall still go on in our quiet way, trying to live for our fellow creatures, continuing to share in their joys and in their sorrows, and living like the richest and humblest of them."

At this moment, all the household, led by Mr. Blother and Mrs. Lemon, came filing out on to the verandah, to congratulate their master on the honour that had been conferred upon him.

Lord Magnolia received their felicitations with heartfelt gratitude, and then Mr. Blother made a little speech.

"It is quite a new situation," he said, "for a domestic staff to find themselves in the service of a peer of the realm, and it is a matter of congratulation to one and all of us that the already unusual circumstances under which we have all lived together here—some of us for a number of years—have been so happy that no awkwardness has been felt anywhere. Perhaps we, in the servants' hall, can take some of the credit for that, for I think we can all say that we have borne some of the burdens of wealth, and have not let them fall entirely upon the shoulders of the excellent master and mistress with whom we have lived in such friendly relations. If any of us have ever seemed to press too hardly upon the younger members of the family, it has only been because we did not wish them to succumb to the temptations of wealth, as they might have done if they had been allowed to forget that servants are usually in a far superior position to those whom they serve. For it would never do for them to grow up thinking that life amongst the rich was so pleasant as I think we servants may pride ourselves on having made it at Magnolia Hall.

"However, I need say no more about that. What I am going to say, on behalf of myself and all my colleagues, is that we wish to mark this happy occasion by an act of self-sacrifice. However my old friend, Lord Magnolia, may wish to conduct his life in the future, we feel that for this evening, at least, we should not like to see him and her ladyship occupying an inferior situation to our own. We propose that the household staff should take their places at the dinner-table, and be waited upon by Lord Magnolia and his family, who will also cook the dinner, and wash up afterwards."

It would be impossible to describe the emotion with which Lord Magnolia met this touching offer of self-surrender, so handsomely acquiesced in by the whole company before him. He said a great many things in reply, but what he said most insistently, and repeated so that it could not possibly be misunderstood, was that nothing would induce him to accept it. Nothing was to be changed, he said. It would take away all his gratification in the honour that had been done to him, if it was to be thought that it would for a moment put him on the level of those whom he had always been glad to call his friends. Let them keep their proud position, and let those who thought and acted with him keep their humble one. If they would do him that honour, let them all come in after dinner and drink a glass of wine—such of them as were not teetotallers—with him and his family. More than that he could not accept from them, if they begged him on their bended knees.

So it was settled. Lord Magnolia drank several glasses of wine that evening, and went up to bed in as happy a frame of mind as that of any peer in Upsidonia.