her armour
for Mrs. Askerton, and was glad, therefore, to achieve her little
victory. When we buckle on our armour in any cause, we are apt to
go on buckling it, let the cause become as weak as it may; and
Clara continued her intimacy with Mrs. Askerton, although there was
something in the lady's modes of speech, and something also in her
modes of thinking, which did not quite satisfy the aspirations of
Miss Amedroz as to a friend.

Colonel Askerton himself was a pleasant, quiet man, who seemed to
be contented with the life which he was leading. For six weeks in
April and May he would go up to town, leaving Mrs. Askerton at the
cottage,--as to which, probably jovial, absence in the metropolis
there seemed to be no spirit of grudging on the part of the wife. On
the first of September a friend would come to the cottage and remain
there for six weeks' shooting; and during the winter the Colonel and
his wife always went to Paris for a fortnight. Such had been their
life for the last two years; and thus,--so said Mrs. Askerton to
Clara,--did they intend to live as long as they could keep the
cottage at Belton. Society at Belton they had none, and,--as they
said,--desired none. Between them and Mr. Wright there was only a
speaking acquaintance. The married curate at Redicote would not
let his wife call on Mrs. Askerton, and the unmarried curate was a
hard-worked, clerical hack,--a parochial minister at all times and
seasons, who went to no houses except the houses of the poor, and who
would hold communion with no man, and certainly with no woman, who
would not put up with clerical admonitions for Sunday backslidings.
Mr. Amedroz himself neither received guests nor went as a guest to
other men's houses. He would occasionally stand for a while at the
gate of the Colonel's garden, and repeat the list of his own woes as
long as his neighbour would stand there to hear it. But there was no
society at Belton, and Clara, as far as she herself was aware, was
the only person with whom Mrs. Askerton held any social intercourse,
except what she might have during her short annual holiday in Paris.

"Of course, you are right," she said, when Clara told her of the
proposed coming of Mr. Belton. "If he turn out to be a good fellow,
you will have gained a great deal. And should he be a bad fellow,
you will have lost nothing. In either case you will know him, and
considering how he stands towards you, that itself is desirable."

"But if he