ilence.

'What one expected, I suppose?' said Mr. Athel.

'I suppose so. Mr. Baxendale probably thinks the man has been applying
for a position in your pantry.'

'Well, I was obliged, you know, to hint at my reasons for seeking
information.'

'You did? Then Beatrice knows all about it by this time. As well that
way as any other, I suppose.'

'We shall have to take the matter like reasonable beings, Edith,' said
her brother, a trifle annoyed by her failure to countenance him.

'Yes; but you seem anxious that I should rejoice. That would not be very
reasonable.'

Something warned Mr. Athel that he had better abstain from rejoinder. He
pursed his lips and walked away.

Wilfrid had not spoken of the subject to his aunt since the disclosure
at The Firs, and Mrs. Rossall was offended by his silence at least as
much as by the prospect of his marrying Miss Hood. Clearly he regarded
the matter as no concern of hers, whereas a woman claims by natural
right a share in the matrimonial projects of all her male relatives with
whom she is on a footing of intimacy. Perhaps the main cause of her
displeasure in the first instance had been the fact that things should
have got to such a pass without her having as much as suspected the
imminence of danger; she regarded Emily as one that had outwitted her.
Dearly would she have liked to be able to meet her brother with the
assertion that she had suspected it all along; the impossibility of
doing so--not from conscientious scruples, but because in that case it
would clearly have been her duty to speak--exasperated her
disappointment at the frustration of the match she desired. Now that she
was getting used to the state of things, Wilfrid's behaviour to her
became the chief ground of her offence. It seemed to her that at least
he owed some kind of apology for the distress he had naturally caused
her; in truth she would have liked him to undertake the task of winning
her over to his side. Between her and her nephew there had never existed
a warm confidence, and Wilfrid's present attitude was too much a
confirmation of the feeling she had experienced now and then, that his
affection was qualified with just a little contempt. She was not, she
knew, a strong-minded woman, and on that very account cared more for the
special dominion of her sex. Since Wilfrid had ceased to be a
hobbledehoy, it would have become him to put a little more of the
courtier into his manner towards her. For are t