cried Frank. "The army list is his one book!
What a piece of luck to have you to coach him up in it!"

"I dare say Rosamond can tell me lots of wrinkles for my outfit,"
said Charles.

"I should hope so, having rigged out Dick for the line, and Maurice
for the artillery!"

Charlie came and leant on the mantel-shelf, and commenced a
conversation sotto voce on the subject nearest his heart; while
Cecil continued her catechism.

"Are the Bowaters intellectual?"

"Jenny is very well read," said Julius, "a very sensible person."

"Yes," said Frank; "she was the only person here that so much as
tried to read Browning. But if Cecil wants intellect, she had
better take to the Duncombes, the queerest firm I ever fell in with.
He makes the turf a regular profession, actually gets a livelihood
out of his betting-book; and she is in the strong-minded line--
woman's rights, and all the rest of it."

"We never had such people at Dunstone," said Cecil. "Papa always
said that the evil of being in parliament was the having to be civil
to everybody."

Just then Raymond came back with intelligence that his mother was
about to go to bed, and to call his wife to wish her good night.
All went in succession to do the same.

"My dear," she said to Anne, "I hoped you were in bed."

"I thought I would wait for family worship."

"I am afraid we don't have prayers at night, my dear. We must
resume them in the morning, now Raymond and Julius are come."

Poor Anne looked all the whiter, and only mumbled out a few answers
to the kind counsels lavished upon her. Mrs. Poynsett was left to
think over her daughters-in-law.

Lady Rosamond did not occupy her much. There was evidently plenty
of good strong love between her and her husband; and though her
training might not have been the best for a clergyman's wife, there
was substance enough in both to shake down together in time.

But it was Raymond who made her uneasy--Raymond, who ever since his
father's death had been more than all her other sons to her. She
had armed herself against the pang of not being first with him, and
now she was full of vague anxiety at the sense that she still held
her old position. Had he not sat all the evening in his own place
by her sofa, as if it were the very kernel of home and of repose?
And whenever a sense of duty prompted her to suggest fetching his
wife, had he not lingered, and gone on talking? It was indeed of
Cecil; but how would she hav