share the ban. Indeed, he would have thought
my own good sense and love of decorum would have taught me that the
abode of two such youths would be no fit place for the daughter of such
respected parents, and there was a good deal more that I could not
understand about interceding with his sister, and her overlooking my
offence in consideration of my inexperience and impulsiveness.

On my first impulse I wrote to thank my old friend, but to say I could
see no harm in an aunt's being with her nephews, and that I was sure he
had only to know them to lay aside all doubts of their being thorough
gentlemen and associates for anybody. My little niece required my
care, and I should stay and give it to her till some other arrangement
was made. If Lady Diana were displeased with me, I was very sorry, but
I could see no reason for it.

When I looked over the old Earl's letter, before closing mine, some
expressions wound out of the mist that made me uncomfortable,
especially when I recollected that though it was a week since their
arrival, no one had attempted to call but Mr. Crosse, the vicar of
Mycening, a very "good man in the pulpit," as the servants said, and
active in the parish, but underbred and no companion.

Our neighbourhood was what is called very clannish. There were two
families, the Horsmans and the Stympsons, who seemed to make up all the
society. The sons either had the good livings, or had retired from
their professions into cottages round and about, and the first question
after any party was, how many of each. The outsiders, not decidedly of
inferior rank, were almost driven into making a little clique--if so it
might be called--of their own, and hanging together the more closely.
Lord Erymanth of course predominated; but he was a widower of many
years' standing, and his heir lived in a distant county. His sister,
Lady Diana, had been married to an Irish Mr. Tracy, who had been
murdered after a few years by his tenants, upon which she had come with
her three children to live at Arked House. I never could guess how she
came to marry an Irish landlord, and I always thought she must have
exasperated his people. She was viewed as the perfection of a Lady
Bountiful and pattern of excellence; but, I confess, that I always
thought of her when I heard of the devout and honourable women who were
stirred up against St. Paul. She was a person who was admired more
than she was liked, and who was greatly praised an