her as a mere child,
petting her to atone for the privations of school, and while she might
assent to the propriety of James's restrictions, always laughing or
looking aside when they were eluded.

James argued and remonstrated. He said a great deal, always had the
advantage in vehemence, and appeared to reduce Louis to a condition of
quaint debonnaire indifference; and warfare seemed the normal state of
the cousins, the one fiery and sensitive, the other cool and impassive,
and yet as appropriate to each other as the pepper and the cucumber, to
borrow a bon mot from their neighbour, Sydney Calcott.

If Jem came to Mary brimful of annoyance with Louis's folly, a mild
word of assent was sufficient to make him turn round and do battle with
the imaginary enemy who was always depreciating Fitzjocelyn. To make
up for Clara's avoidance of Mary, he rendered her his prime counsellor,
and many an hour was spent in pacing up and down the garden in the
summer twilight; while she did her best to pacify him by suggesting
that thorough relaxation would give spirits and patience for Clara's
next half year, and that it might be wiser not to overstrain his own
undefined authority, while the lawful power, Aunt Catharine, did not
interfere. Surely she might safely be trusted to watch over her own
granddaughter; and while Clara was so perfectly simple, and Louis such
as he was, more evil than good might result from inculcating reserve.
At any rate, it was hard to meddle with the poor child's few weeks of
happiness, and to this James always agreed; and then he came the next
day to relieve himself by fighting the battle over again. So
constantly did this occur, that Aunt Kitty, in her love of mischief,
whispered to Mrs. Ponsonby that she only hoped the two viziers would
not quarrel about the three thousand sequins, three landed estates, and
three slaves.

Still, Louis's desertion had left unoccupied so many of the hours of
Mary's time that he had previously absorbed, that her mother watched
anxiously to see whether she would feel the blank. But she treated it
as a matter of course. She had attended to her cousin when he needed
her, and now that he had regained his former companion, Clara, she
resigned him without effort or mortification, as far as could be seen.
She was forced to fall back on other duties, furnishing the house,
working for every one, and reading some books that Louis had brought
before her. The impulse of self-imp