ng Captain Aylmer
started for London. Clara felt aware that she had not done or said
all that should have been done and said; but, nevertheless, a step in
the right direction had been taken.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE AYLMER PARK HASHED CHICKEN COMES TO AN END.

Easter in this year fell about the middle of April, and it still
wanted three weeks of that time when Captain Aylmer started for
London. Clara was quite alive to the fact that the next three weeks
would not be a happy time for her. She looked forward, indeed, to so
much wretchedness during this period, that the days as they came were
not quite so bad as she had expected them to be. At first Lady Aylmer
said little or nothing to her. It seemed to be agreed between them
that there was to be war, but that there was no necessity for any of
the actual operations of war during the absence of Captain Aylmer.
Clara had become Miss Amedroz again; and though an offer to be
driven out in the carriage was made to her every day, she was in
general able to escape the infliction;--so that at last it came to be
understood that Miss Amedroz did not like carriage exercise. "She has
never been used to it," said Lady Aylmer to her daughter. "I suppose
not," said Belinda; "but if she wasn't so very cross she'd enjoy it
just for that reason." Clara sometimes walked about the grounds with
Belinda, but on such occasions there was hardly anything that could
be called conversation between them, and Frederic Aylmer's name was
never mentioned.

Captain Aylmer had not been gone many days before she received a
letter from her cousin, in which he spoke with absolute certainty of
his intention of giving up the estate. He had, he said, consulted
Mr. Green, and the thing was to be done. "But it will be better,
I think," he went on to say, "that I should manage it for you till
after your marriage. I simply mean what I say. You are not to suppose
that I shall interfere in any way afterwards. Of course there will be
a settlement, as to which I hope you will allow me to see Mr. Green
on your behalf." In the first draught of his letter he had inserted a
sentence in which he expressed a wish that the property should be so
settled that it might at last all come to some one bearing the name
of Belton. But as he read this over, the condition,--for coming from
him it would be a condition,--seemed to him to be ungenerous, and he
expunged it. "What does it matter who has it," he said to himself
bitte