erstood, till it was needful
to be explicit. A long stillness followed, broken at last by Phoebe's
question, whether she would not see Robert. 'Not till I am up, my dear,'
she answered, in an injured voice; 'do, pray, see whether Boodle is
coming with my warm water.'

Her mind was not yet awake to the stroke, and was lapsing into its
ordinary mechanical routine; her two breakfasts, and protracted dressing,
occupied her for nearly two hours, after which she did not refuse to see
her son, but showed far less emotion than he did, while he gave the
details of the past day. Her dull, apathetic gaze was a contrast with
the young man's gush of tears, and the caresses that Phoebe lavished on
her listless hand. Phoebe proposed that Robert should read to her--she
assented, and soon dozed, awaking to ask plaintively for Boodle and her
afternoon cup of tea.

So passed the following days, her state nearly the same, and her interest
apparently feebly roused by the mourning, but by nothing else. She did
not like that Phoebe should leave her, but was more at ease with her maid
than her son, and, though he daily came to sit with her and read to her,
he was grieved to be unable to be of greater use, while he could seldom
have Phoebe to himself. Sorely missing Miss Charlecote, he took his
meals in the west wing, where his presence was highly appreciated, though
he was often pained by Bertha's levity and Maria's imbecility. The
governess treated him with marked esteem and consideration, strikingly
dissimilar to the punctilious, but almost contemptuous, courtesy of her
behaviour to the other gentlemen of the family, and, after her pupils
were gone to bed, would fasten upon him for a discussion such as her soul
delighted in, and his detested. Secure of his ground, he was not sure of
his powers of reasoning with an able lady of nearly double his years, and
more than double his reading and readiness of speech, yet he durst not
retreat from argument, lest he should seem to yield the cause that he was
sworn to maintain, 'in season and out of season.' It was hard that his
own troubles and other people's should alike bring him in for controversy
on all the things that end in 'ism.'

He learnt by letter from Sir Bevil Acton that his father had been much
struck by what he had seen in Cecily-row, and had strongly expressed his
concern that Robert had been allowed to strip himself for the sake of a
duty, which, if it were such at all, belon