I was going to speak to Rosamond myself."

He looked very blank.

"Mind, I am certain that it is only an innocent following of what
she has been brought up to;" and as he signed a sort of hurt
acquiescence, as if trying to swallow the offence, she added, "When
do you go out again?"

"Not till Monday, when we dine at Colonel Ross's. He is an old
friend of Lord Rathforlane."

"Then I am inclined to let it cool. Sometimes advice that has been
resented does its work."

"You don't think the interference justifiable?"

"Not from that quarter."

"And can it be needful to attend to it?"

"My dear Julius, it is not a style of dress I could ever have worn,
nor have let my daughters have worn, if I had had any."

"Conclusive, that!" said Julius, getting up, more really angered
with his mother than he had been since his childhood.

However, he conquered himself by the time he had reached the door,
and came back to say, "I beg your pardon, mother, I know you would
not say so without need."

"Thank you, my boy!" and he saw tears in her eyes, the first time he
was conscious of having brought them. As he bent down to kiss her,
she rallied, and cheerfully said, "I have no doubt it will all come
right--Rosamond is too nice not to feel it at once."

No such thing; Rosamond was still furious. If he disapproved, she
would submit to him; but he had seen nothing wrong, had he?

"My dear Rose, I told you I was no judge: you forget what my eyes
are; and my mother--"

"You have been to your mother?"

"My dear, what could I do?"

"And you think I am going to insult my own mother and sisters to
please any woman's finical prudish notions'? Pray what did Mrs.
Poynsett say?"

The excuse of custom, pleaded by Mrs. Poynsett, only made Rosamond
fiercer. She wished she had never come where she was to hear that
her own mother was no judge of propriety, and her husband could not
trust her, but must needs run about asking everybody if she were fit
to be seen. Such a tempest Julius had never seen outside a back
street in the garrison town. There seemed to be nothing she would
not say, and his attempts at soothing only added to her violence.
Indeed, there was only one thing which would have satisfied her, and
that was, that she had been perfectly right, and the whole world
barbarously wrong; and she was wild with passion at perceiving that
he had a confidence in his own mother which he could not feel in
hers.

Nor would he