iend, I want to give you a piece of advice. Stay here as long as
you can. Your aunt will soon perceive the absurdity of her ideas in
regard to your husband, and will cease to annoy you. Make a friend of
your cousin Junius, whom I know and respect highly; and he certainly
will be of advantage to you. Above all things, endeavor to thoroughly
reconcile him and Mrs Keswick, so that she will cease to oppose his
wishes, and to interfere with his future fortune. If you can bring back
good feeling between these two, you will be the angel of the family."

"Thank you," said Mrs Null, as they rose from the table.

The next morning, after Mr Brandon and Mrs Null had breakfasted
together, the mistress of the house, having apparently finished the
performance of the duties which had kept her from the breakfast-table,
had some conversation with her visitor. In this he repeated very little
of what he had said to the younger lady the night before, but he
assured Mrs Keswick that he had discovered that it would be a very
delicate thing to propose to her niece a divorce from her husband, a
thing to which she was not at all inclined, as he had found.

"Of course not! of course not!" exclaimed Mrs Keswick. "She can't be
expected to see what a wretched plight she has got herself into by
marrying this straggler from nobody knows where."

"But, madam," said Mr Brandon, "if you worry her about it, she will
leave you, and then all will be at an end. Now, let me advise you as
your lawyer. Keep her here as long as you can. Do everything possible to
foster friendship and good feeling between her and Junius; and to do
this you must forget as far as possible all that has gone by, and be
friendly with both of them yourself."

"Humph!" said the widow Keswick. "I didn't ask you for advice of that
sort."

"It is all a part of the successful working of the case, madam," said Mr
Brandon. "A thorough good feeling must be established before anything
else can be done."

"I suppose so," said the old lady. "She must learn to like us before she
begins to hate him. And how about your niece? Are you going to send her
down here to help on in the good feeling?"

"I have not brought my niece into this affair," replied Mr Brandon, with
dignity.

"Well, then, see that you don't," was the widow Keswick's reply. And the
interview terminated.

When Mr Brandon rode away on his good horse Albemarle, he looked at the
post of the road gate from which he was lifting