her uncle was kept rather haughtily at a
distance. A certain aloofness must be allowed to the representative of
an old family; you would not expect him to be on intimate terms even
with abstractions. But Mrs. Gascoigne was less dispassionate on her
husband's account, and felt Grandcourt's haughtiness as something a
little blameable in Gwendolen.

"Your uncle and Anna will very likely be in town about Easter," she
said, with a vague sense of expressing a slight discontent. "Dear Rex
hopes to come out with honors and a fellowship, and he wants his father
and Anna to meet him in London, that they may be jolly together, as he
says. I shouldn't wonder if Lord Brackenshaw invited them, he has been
so very kind since he came back to the Castle."

"I hope my uncle will bring Ann to stay in Grosvenor Square," said
Gwendolen, risking herself so far, for the sake of the present moment,
but in reality wishing that she might never be obliged to bring any of
her family near Grandcourt again. "I am very glad of Rex's good
fortune."

"We must not be premature, and rejoice too much beforehand," said the
rector, to whom this topic was the happiest in the world, and
altogether allowable, now that the issue of that little affair about
Gwendolen had been so satisfactory. "Not but that I am in
correspondence with impartial judges, who have the highest hopes about
my son, as a singularly clear-headed young man. And of his excellent
disposition and principle I have had the best evidence."

"We shall have him a great lawyer some time," said Mrs. Gascoigne.

"How very nice!" said Gwendolen, with a concealed scepticism as to
niceness in general, which made the word quite applicable to lawyers.

"Talking of Lord Brackenshaw's kindness," said Mrs. Davilow, "you don't
know how delightful he has been, Gwendolen. He has begged me to
consider myself his guest in this house till I can get another that I
like--he did it in the most graceful way. But now a house has turned
up. Old Mr. Jodson is dead, and we can have his house. It is just what
I want; small, but with nothing hideous to make you miserable thinking
about it. And it is only a mile from the Rectory. You remember the low
white house nearly hidden by the trees, as we turn up the lane to the
church?"

"Yes, but you have no furniture, poor mamma," said Gwendolen, in a
melancholy tone.

"Oh, I am saving money for that. You know who has made me rather rich,
dear," said Mrs. Davilow, layin