for a time to which the memory of his son did not go back.
Hampstead of course obeyed his father's injunctions, and went down to
Trafford instantly, leaving his sister alone at Hendon Hall. He found
the Marquis not in bed indeed, but confined to his own sitting-room,
and to a very small bed-chamber which had been fitted up for him
close to it. Mr. Greenwood had been anxious to give up his own rooms
as being more spacious; but the offer had been peremptorily and
almost indignantly refused. The Marquis had been unwilling to accept
anything like a courtesy from Mr. Greenwood. Should he make up his
mind to turn Mr. Greenwood out of the house,--and he had almost made
up his mind to do so,--then he could do what he pleased with Mr.
Greenwood's rooms. But he wasn't going to accept the loan of chambers
in his own house as a favour from Mr. Greenwood.

Hampstead on arriving at the house saw the Marchioness for a moment
before he went to his father. "I cannot tell how he is," said Lady
Kingsbury, speaking in evident dudgeon. "He will hardly let me go
near him. Doctor Spicer seems to think that we need not be alarmed.
He shuts himself up in those gloomy rooms down-stairs. Of course it
would be better for him to be off the ground floor, where he would
have more light and air. But he has become so obstinate, that I do
not know how to deal with him."

"He has always liked to live in the room next to Mr. Greenwood's."

"He has taken an absolute hatred to Mr. Greenwood. You had better not
mention the poor old gentleman's name to him. Shut up as I am here, I
have no one else to speak a word to, and for that reason, I suppose,
he wishes to get rid of him. He is absolutely talking of sending the
man away after having had him with him for nearly thirty years."
In answer to all this Hampstead said almost nothing. He knew his
stepmother, and was aware that he could do no service by telling
her what he might find it to be his duty to say to his father as
to Mr. Greenwood, or on any other subject. He did not hate his
stepmother,--as she hated him. But he regarded her as one to whom it
was quite useless to speak seriously as to the affairs of the family.
He knew her to be prejudiced, ignorant, and falsely proud,--but he
did not suppose her to be either wicked or cruel.

His father began almost instantly about Mr. Greenwood, so that it
would have been quite impossible for him to follow Lady Kingsbury's
advice on that matter had he been ever