hour the servant summoned the children to
the house. The horses were ready, and they were now to return. Lady
Annabel received them with her usual cheerfulness.

'Well, dear children,' said she, 'have you been very much amused?'

Venetia ran forward, and embraced her mother with even unusual
fondness. She was mindful of Plantagenet's injunctions, and was
resolved not to revive her mother's grief by any allusion that could
recall the past; but her heart was, nevertheless, full of sympathy,
and she could not have rode home, had she not thus expressed her love
for her mother.

With the exception of this strange incident, over which, afterwards,
Venetia often pondered, and which made her rather serious the whole of
the ride home, this expedition to Marringhurst was a very happy day.

CHAPTER XII.

This happy summer was succeeded by a singularly wet autumn. Weeks of
continuous rain rendered it difficult even for the little Cadurcis,
who defied the elements, to be so constant as heretofore in his daily
visits to Cherbury. His mother, too, grew daily a greater invalid,
and, with increasing sufferings and infirmities, the natural
captiousness of her temper proportionally exhibited itself. She
insisted upon the companionship of her son, and that he should not
leave the house in such unseasonable weather. If he resisted, she fell
into one of her jealous rages, and taunted him with loving strangers
better than his own mother. Cadurcis, on the whole, behaved very well;
he thought of Lady Annabel's injunctions, and restrained his passion.
Yet he was not repaid for the sacrifice; his mother made no effort
to render their joint society agreeable, or even endurable. She was
rarely in an amiable mood, and generally either irritable or sullen.
If the weather held up a little, and he ventured to pay a visit to
Cherbury, he was sure to be welcomed back with a fit of passion;
either Mrs. Cadurcis was angered for being left alone, or had
fermented herself into fury by the certainty of his catching a fever.
If Plantagenet remained at the abbey, she was generally sullen; and,
as he himself was naturally silent under any circumstances, his mother
would indulge in that charming monologue, so conducive to domestic
serenity, termed 'talking at a person,' and was continually
insinuating that she supposed he found it very dull to pass his day
with her, and that she dared say that somebody could be lively enough
if he were somewhere els