n near the Manor. I feared it was an appointment.
Your explanation is all I wanted: it relieves me. The worst of it
is, other people will hear of it, and of course we can't explain to
everyone.'

'Why should people hear?' Adela exclaimed, in a quivering voice. It was
not that she feared to have the story known, but mingled feelings made
her almost passionate. 'Mrs. Mewling has no right to go about talking of
me. It is very ill-bred, to say nothing of the unkindness.'

'Ah, but it is what we have to be prepared for, Adela. That is the
world, my child. You see how very careful one has to be. But never mind;
it is most fortunate that the Eldons are going. I am so sorry for poor
Mrs. Eldon; who could have thought that her son would turn out so badly!
And to think that he would have dared to come into my house! At least he
had the decency not to show himself at church.'

Adela sat silent. The warring of her heart made outward sounds
indistinct.

'After all,' pursued her mother, as if making a great concession, 'I
fear it is only too true that those old families become degenerate.
One does hear such shocking stories of the aristocracy. But get to bed,
dear, and don't let this trouble you. What a very good thing that all
that wealth didn't go into such hands, isn't it? Mr. Mutimer will at
all events use it in a decent way; it won't be scattered in vulgar
dissipation.--Now kiss me, dear. I haven't been scolding you, pet; it
was only that I felt I had perhaps made a mistake in not telling you
these things before, and I blamed myself rather than you.'

Mrs. Waltham returned to her own room, and after a brief turning over
of speculations and projects begotten of the new aspect of things, found
her reward for conscientiousness in peaceful slumber. But Adela was late
in falling asleep. She, too, had many things to revolve, not worldly
calculations, but the troubled phantasies of a virgin mind which is
experiencing its first shock against the barriers of fate.

CHAPTER IX

Richard Mutimer had strong domestic affections. The English artisan is
not demonstrative in such matters, and throughout his life Richard
had probably exchanged no word of endearment with any one of his kin,
whereas language of the tempestuous kind was common enough from him to
one and all of them; for all that he clung closely to the hearth,
and nothing in truth concerned him so nearly as the well-being of his
mother, his sister, and his brother. F