ed Clarice's ears in a whisper from Olympias,
and was deliberately echoed in the heart of the former.

"But that will never do for me!" exclaimed Ada. "I am sure I have no
vocation. What am I to do?"

"The Lady proposes, in her goodness," said the Countess's mouthpiece,
"to get thee an appointment in the household of one of the Ladies the
King's daughters."

"_Ha, jolife_!" said Ada, and ceased her interjections.

"For you, Dames," continued Felicia, turning to Clarice and Olympias,
"she says that, being wedded, you are already provided for, and need no
thought on her part."

"Oh, then, I may go back to Oakham," answered Olympias in a satisfied
tone. "That is what I want."

Clarice wondered sorrowfully what her lot would be--whether she might
return to Oakham. She felt more at home there than anywhere else. The
question was whether, Clarice being now at large, Vivian would continue
in the Earl's service; and even if he did, they might perhaps no longer
live in the Castle. Clarice took this new trouble where she carried
them all; but the Earl's sorrow was more in her mind than her own. She
was learning to cultivate:--

"A heart at leisure from itself,
To soothe and sympathise."

She found that Vivian had already heard the news from Father Miles, and
she timidly ventured to ask him what he intended to do.

After a few flights of rhetoric concerning the extreme folly of the
Countess--to forsake an earldom for the cloister was a proceeding not in
Vivian's line at all--that gentleman condescended so far to answer his
wife as to observe that he was not fool enough not to know when he was
well off. Clarice thankfully conjectured that they would return to
Oakham. She thought it better, however, to ask the question point
blank; and she received a reply--of course accompanied by a snub.

"Why should we be such fools as to go to Oakham when my Lord is in
Bermondsey?"

"Bermondsey!" Clarice was surprised. "You never know anything!" said
Vivian. "Of course he is come to town."

Clarice received the snubbing in silence. "You are so taken up with
that everlasting brat of yours," added Rose's affectionate father, "that
you never know what anybody else is doing."

There had been a time when Clarice would have defended herself against
such accusations. She was learning now that she suffered least when she
received them in meek silence. The only way to deal with Vivian
Barkeworth was to let him alone.