as she came to turn it in her mind there were certain circumstances
which recommended the change to her--should the change be necessary.
Florence certainly had expressed an unintelligible objection to the
elder brother. Why should the younger not be more successful? Mrs.
Mountjoy's heart had begun to droop within her as she had thought that
her girl would prove deaf to the voice of the charmer. Another charmer
had come, most objectionable in her sight, but to him no word of
absolute encouragement had, as she thought, been yet spoken. Augustus
had already obtained for himself among his friends the character of an
eloquent young lawyer. Let him come and try his eloquence on his
cousin,--only let it first be ascertained, as an assured fact, and beyond
the possibility of all retrogression, that the squire's villainy was
certain.

"I think, my love," she said to her daughter one day, "that, under the
immediate circumstances of the family, we should retire for a while into
private life." This occurred on the very day on which Septimus Jones had
been vaguely informed of the iniquitous falsehood of Harry Annesley.

"Good gracious, mamma, is not our life always private?" She had
understood it all,--that the private life was intended altogether to
exclude Harry, but was to be made open to the manoeuvres of her cousin,
such as they might be.

"Not in the sense in which I mean. Your poor uncle is dying."

"We hear that Sir William says he is better."

"I fear, nevertheless, that he is dying,--though it may, perhaps, take a
long time. And then poor Mountjoy has disappeared. I think that we
should see no one till the mystery about Mountjoy has been cleared up.
And then the story is so very discreditable."

"I do not see that that is an affair of ours," said Florence, who had no
desire to be shut up just at the present moment.

"We cannot help ourselves. This making his eldest son out to be--oh,
something so very different--is too horrible to be thought of. I am told
that nobody knows the truth."

"We at any rate are not implicated in that."

"But we are. He at any rate is my brother, and Mountjoy is my nephew,--or
at any rate was. Poor Augustus is thrown into terrible difficulties."

"I am told that he is greatly pleased at finding that Tretton is to
belong to him."

"Who tells you that? You have no right to believe anything about such
near relatives from any one. Whoever told you so has been very wicked."
Mrs. Mountjoy