not care to notice this. She was
doing the best she could for his happiness,--as she had done for
his health, when in days gone by she had administered to him his
infantine rhubarb and early senna; but as she had never then expected
him to like her doses, neither did she now expect that he should
be well pleased at the remedial measures to which he was to be
subjected.

No letter came on the Wednesday, nor did any come on the Thursday,
and then it was thought by the ladies at the Park that the time had
come for speaking a word or two. Belinda, at her mother's instance,
began the attack,--not in her mother's presence, but when she only
was with her brother.

"Isn't it odd, Frederic, that Clara shouldn't write about those
people at Belton?"

"Somersetshire is the other side of London, and letters take a long
time."

"But if she had written on Monday, her answer would have been here on
Wednesday morning;--indeed, you would have had it Tuesday evening,
as mamma sent over to Whitby for the day mail letters." Poor Belinda
was a bad lieutenant, and displayed too much of her senior officer's
tactics in thus showing how much calculation and how much solicitude
there had been as to the expected letter.

"If I am contented I suppose you may be," said the brother.

"But it does seem to me to be so very important! If she hasn't got
your letter, you know, it would be so necessary that you should write
again, so that the--the--the contamination should be stopped as
soon as possible." Captain Aylmer shook his head and walked away.
He was, no doubt, prepared to be morally indignant,--morally very
indignant,--at the Askerton iniquity; but he did not like the word
contamination as applied to his future wife.

"Frederic," said his mother, later on the same day,--when the
hardly-used groom had returned from his futile afternoon's inquiry at
the neighbouring post-town,--"I think you should do something in this
affair."

"Do what, ma'am? Go off to Belton myself?"

"No, no. I certainly would not do that. In the first place it would
be very inconvenient to you, and in the next place it would not be
fair upon us. I did not mean that at all. But I think that something
should be done. She should be made to understand."

"You may be sure, ma'am, that she understands as well as anybody."

"I dare say she is clever enough at these kind of things."

"What kind of things?"

"Don't bite my nose off, Frederic, because I am anxious abou