connections falling
upon their wives, and not on themselves. The brougham was ordered,
accordingly, and she set out alone, though Minnie would willingly have
strained a point to accompany her. "Don't you think, mamma, that as I am
much nearer her own age she might like me to go?" that young lady said.
But here Theo came in again with his newly acquired authority. "Mother
is the right person," he said.

She did not feel much like the right person as she drove along. Lady
Markland had not wanted consolation; the shock had turned her to stone.
And then she had her child, and seemed to need no other minister. But if
it pleased Theo, that was motive enough. Mrs. Warrender reflected, as
she pursued her way, upon the kind of squire he would make, different
from his father,--oh, very different; not the ordinary type of the
English country gentleman. He would not hunt, he would shoot very
little; but her husband had not been enthusiastic in either of these
pursuits. He would not care, perhaps, for county business or for the
quarter sessions; he would have too much contempt for the country
bumpkins to be popular with the farmers or wield political influence.
Very likely (she thought), he would not live much at the Warren, but
keep rooms at Oxford, or perhaps go to London. She had no fear that he
would ever "go wrong." That was as great an impossibility as that he
should be prime minister or Archbishop of Canterbury. But yet it was
a little odd that he should be so particular about keeping up the
accidental connection with Lady Markland. This showed that he was not
so indifferent to retaining his place in the county and keeping up all
local ties as she thought. As for any other ideas that Theo might
associate with the young widow,--the widow whose husband lay still
unburied,--nothing of the kind entered Mrs. Warrender's head.

The nakedness of the house seemed to be made more conspicuous by the
blank of all the closed windows, the white blinds down, the white walls
shining like a sort of colourless monument in the blaze of the westering
sun. The sound of the wheels going up the open road which was called an
avenue seemed a kind of insult to the stillness which brooded over the
house of death. When the old butler came solemnly down the great steps,
the small country lady, who was not on Lady Markland's level, felt her
little pretence at intimacy quite unjustifiable. The butler came down
the steps with a solemn air to receive a car