pleasant and agreeable for her presence and unfailing
attention, though still his estimation of her was influenced more than
he owned to himself by that of the world in general, and the Rectory in
particular.

And the Rectory did its part well. The Canon was not only charmed with
the gentle lady, but felt an atonement due to her; and his wife,
without ever breathing into any ears, save his, the mysterious
adjective 'governessy,' praised her right and left, confiding to all
inquirers the romance of the burnt yacht, the lost bride, and the happy
meeting under Lady Kirkaldy's auspices, with the perfect respectability
of the intermediate career, while such was the universal esteem for,
and trust in herself and the Canon, that she was fully believed; and
people only whispered that probably Alwyn Egremont had been excused for
the desertion more than he deserved.

The subject of all this gossip troubled herself about it infinitely
less than did the good Canoness. In effect she did not know enough of
the world to think about it at all. Her cares were of a different
order, chiefly caused by tenderness of conscience, and solicitude to
keep the peace between the two beings whom she best loved.

Two things were in her favour in this latter respect, one that they saw
very little of each other, since Mr. Egremont seldom emerged from his
own rooms till after luncheon; and the other that Ursula's brains ran
to little but lawn-tennis for the ensuing weeks. To hold a champion's
place at the tournaments, neck and neck with her cousin Blanche, and
defeat Miss Ruthven, and that veteran player, Miss Basset, was her
foremost ambition, and the two cousins would have practised morning,
noon, and night if their mothers would have let them. There need have
been no fear of Ursula's rebellion about the Cambridge honours, she
never seemed even to think of them, and would have had no time in the
more important competition of rackets. Indeed, it was almost treated as
a hardship that the pair were forbidden to rush together before twelve
o'clock, and that Ursula's mother insisted on rational home occupation
until that time, setting the example herself by letter-writing,
needlework, and sharing in the music which was a penance to the girl,
only enforced by that strong sense of protecting affection which
forbade rebellion. But Alice could hope that their performances were
pleasant to her husband in the evening, if only to sleep by, and so she
p