possible family arranged
for and made the subject of conversation in the more crude atmosphere
of New York. It made her feel rather awkward at first. Then she began
to realise that the son was part of her wifely duty also; that she was
expected to provide one, and that he was in some way expected to provide
for the estate--to rehabilitate it--and that this was because her
father, being a rich man, would provide for him. It had also struck her
that in England there was a tendency to expectation that someone
would "provide" for someone else, that relatives even by marriage were
supposed to "make allowances" on which it was quite proper for other
persons to live. Rosalie had been accustomed to a community in which
even rich men worked, and in which young and able-bodied men would have
felt rather indignant if aunts or uncles had thought it necessary to
pension them off as if they had been impotent paupers. It was Rosalie's
son who was to be "provided for" in this case, and who was to "provide
for" his father.

"When you have a son," her mother-in-law had remarked severely, "I
suppose something will be done for Nigel and the estate."

This had been said before she had been ten days in the house, and had
set her not-too-quick brain working. She had already begun to see that
life at Stornham Court was not the luxurious affair it was in the
house in Fifth Avenue. Things were shabby and queer and not at all
comfortable. Fires were not lighted because a day was chilly and gloomy.
She had once asked for one in her bedroom and her mother-in-law had
reproved her for indecent extravagance in a manner which took her breath
away.

"I suppose in America you have your house at furnace heat in July," she
said. "Mere wastefulness and self-indulgence! That is why Americans are
old women at twenty. They are shrivelled and withered by the unhealthy
lives they lead. Stuffing themselves with sweets and hot bread and never
breathing the fresh air."

Rosalie could not at the moment recall any withered and shrivelled old
women of twenty, but she blushed and stammered as usual.

"It is never cold enough for fires in July," she answered, "but we--we
never think fires extravagant when we are not comfortable without them."

"Coal must be cheaper than it is in England," said her ladyship. "When
you have a daughter, I hope you do not expect to bring her up as girls
are brought up in New York."

This was the first time Rosalie had heard of her