bsence of all sense of
the fitness of things which so eminently characterized her, had joined
the Ashtons after service, inquiring with quite motherly solicitude after
Mrs. Ashton's health, complimenting Anne upon her charming looks; making
herself, in short, as agreeable as she knew how, and completely ignoring
the past in regard to her son-in-law. Gentlewomen in mind and manners,
they did not repulse her, were even courteously civil; and she graciously
accompanied them across the road to the Rectory-gate, and there took a
cordial leave, saying she would look in on the morrow.

In returning she met Dr. Ashton. He was passing her with nothing but a
bow; but he little knew the countess-dowager. She grasped his hand; said
how grieved she was not to have had an opportunity of explaining away her
part in the past; hoped he would let bygones be bygones; and finally,
whilst the clergyman was scheming how to get away from her without
absolute rudeness, she astonished him with a communication touching the
action-at-law. There ensued a little mutual misapprehension, followed by
a few emphatic words of denial from Dr. Ashton; and the countess-dowager
walked away with a scarlet face, and an explosion of anger against her
daughter.

Lady Hartledon was not yet callous to the proprieties of life; and the
intrusion on the Ashtons, which her mother confessed to, half frightened,
half shamed her. But the dowager's wrath at having been misled bore down
everything. Dr. Ashton had entered no action whatever against Lord
Hartledon; had never thought of doing it.

"And you, you wicked, ungrateful girl, to come home to me with such an
invention, and cause me to start off on a fool's errand! Do you suppose I
should have gone and humbled myself to those people, but for hoping to
bring the parson to a sense of what he was doing in going-in for those
enormous damages?"

"I have not come home to you with any invention, mamma. Dr. Ashton has
entered the action."

"He has not," raved the dowager. "It is an infamous hoax you have played
off upon me. You couldn't find any excuse for your husband's staying in
London, and so invented this. What with you, and what with Kirton's
ingratitude, I shall be driven out of house and home!"

"I won't say another word until you are calm and can talk common sense,"
said Maude, leaning back in her chair, and putting down her prayer-book.

"Common sense! What am I talking but common sense? When a child begins