he kind of thing, and her ladyship
continued, 'Yes, you must find it uncommonly dull to be so much alone.
Where did Juliana tell me she had heard of Lucy Sandbrook?'

'She is in Staffordshire,' answered Honor, gravely.

'Ah, yes, with Mrs. Willis Beaumont; I remember. Juliana made a point of
letting her know all about it, and how you were obliged to give her up.'

'I hope not,' exclaimed Honor, alarmed. 'I never gave her up! There is
no cause but her own spirit of independence that she should not return to
me to-morrow.'

'Oh, indeed,' said Augusta, carelessly letting the subject drop, after
having implanted anxiety too painful to be quelled by the hope that Lady
Acton's neighbourhood might have learnt how to rate her words.

Mr. Crabbe was satisfied and complimentary; Robert, rejoiced and
grateful; and Bertha, for the first time, set her will upon recovering,
and made daily experiments on her strength, thus quickly amending, though
still her weakness and petulance needed the tenderest management, and
once when a doubt arose as to Miss Charlecote's being able to leave home,
she suddenly withered up again, with such a recurrence of unfavourable
symptoms as proved how precarious was her state.

It was this evidence of the necessity of the arrangement that chiefly
contributed to bring it to pass. When the pressure of difficulty
lessened, Mervyn was half ashamed of his own conquest, disliked the
obligation, and expected to be bored by 'the old girl,' as, to Phoebe's
intense disgust, he _would_ speak of Miss Charlecote. Still, in
essentials he was civil and considerate, and Honor carefully made it
evident that she did not mean to obtrude herself, and expected him to sit
loose to the female part of the company. Divining that he would prefer
the start from home not to be simultaneous, and also favouring poor
Bertha's shuddering horror of the direct line of railway to London, she
proposed that the ladies should work their way by easy journeys on cross
lines to Southampton, whilst Mervyn settled his affairs at the office,
and then should come to them with Robert, who had made it possible to
take an Easter holiday in which to see them safe to their destination in
Switzerland.

Phoebe tried to acquiesce in Miss Charlecote's advice to trust Mervyn's
head to Robert's charge, and not tease him with solicitude; but the being
debarred from going to London was a great disappointment. She longed for
a sight of St. Matthew's