iving apart so
cheerfully, for such trivial reasons! Even if one had suffered great wrong
at the hands of the other it was their duty to remain side by side. "Those
whom God had joined together--"

"He didn't," snapped Cousin Jane. "They were joined together by a scrubby
man in a registry office."

This is the wild and unjust way in which women talk. For aught Cousin Jane
knew the Chelsea Registrar might have been an Antinous for beauty.

Mrs. Oldrieve shook her head sadly. She had known how it would be. If only
they had been married in church by their good vicar, this calamity could
not have befallen them.

"All the churches and all the vicars and all the archbishops couldn't have
made that man anything else than a doddering idiot! How Emmy could have
borne with him for a day passes my understanding. She has done well to get
rid of him. She has made a mess of it, of course. People who marry in that
way generally do. It serves her right."

So spoke Cousin Jane, whom Sypher found, in a sense, an unexpected ally.
She made his task easier. Mrs. Oldrieve remained unconvinced.

"And the baby just a month or so old. Poor little thing! What's to become
of it?"

"Emmy will have to come here," said Cousin Jane firmly, "and I'll bring it
up. Emmy isn't fit to educate a rabbit. You had better write and order her
to come home at once."

"I'll write to-morrow," sighed Mrs. Oldrieve.

Sypher reflected on the impossibilities of the proposition and on the
reasons Emmy still had for remaining in exile in Paris. He also pitied the
child that was to be brought up by Cousin Jane. It had extravagant tastes.
He smiled.

"My friend Dix is already thinking of sending him to the University; so you
see they have plans for his education."

Cousin Jane sniffed. She would make plans for them! As for the
University--if it could turn out a doddering idiot like Septimus, it was
criminal to send any young man to such a seat of unlearning. She would not
allow him to have a voice in the matter. Emmy was to be summoned to
Nunsmere.

Sypher was about to deprecate the idea when he reflected again, and thought
of Hotspur and the spirits from the vasty deep. Cousin Jane could call, and
so could Mrs. Oldrieve. But would Emmy come? As the answer to the question
was in the negative he left Cousin Jane to her comfortable resolutions.

"You will no doubt discuss the matter with Dix," he said.

Cousin Jane threw up her hands. "Oh, for goodness' sak