of a weekly newspaper with a separate editor for such
difficulties. Mrs. Demijohn had almost arrived at the facts. The two
ladies were second cousins. Mrs. Vincent was a widow, was religious,
was austere, was fairly well off, and had quarrelled altogether with
her distant relative George of the Post Office. Mrs. Roden, though
she went to church, was not so well given to religious observances as
her cousin would have her. Hence words had come which Mrs. Roden had
borne with equanimity, but had received without effect. Nevertheless
the two women loved each other dearly, and it was a great part of the
life of each of them that these weekly visits should be made. There
was one great fact, as to which Mrs. Demijohn and Holloway were in
the wrong. Mrs. Roden was not a widow.

It was not till the Kingsburys had left London that George told his
mother of his engagement. She was well acquainted with his intimacy
with Lord Hampstead, and knew that he had been staying at Hendon
Hall with the Kingsbury family. There had been no reticence between
the mother and son as to these people, in regard to whom she had
frequently cautioned him that there was danger in such associations
with people moving altogether in a different sphere. In answer to
this the son had always declared that he did not see the danger.
He had not run after Lord Hampstead. Circumstances had thrown them
together. They had originally met each other in a small political
debating society, and gradually friendship had grown. The lord had
sought him, and not he the lord. That, according to his own idea, had
been right. Difference in rank, difference in wealth, difference in
social regard required as much as that. He, when he had discovered
who was the young man whom he had met, stood off somewhat, and
allowed the friendship to spring from the other side. He had been
slow to accept favour,--even at first to accept hospitality. But
whenever the ice had, as he said, been thoroughly broken, then he
thought that there was no reason why they should not pull each
other out of the cold water together. As for danger, what was there
to fear? The Marchioness would not like it? Very probably. The
Marchioness was not very much to Hampstead, and was nothing at all
to him. The Marquis would not really like it. Perhaps not. But in
choosing a friend a young man is not supposed to follow altogether
his father's likings,--much less need the chosen friend follow them.
But the Marquis, as