ffensive to Julia. She looked
as she had looked during the months that succeeded his father's death,
but she gave a general, a final grim assent to the proposition that, let
their kinswoman take it as she would, their own duty was unmistakably
clear.

It was Grace who was principal representative of the idea that Julia
would be outraged by such a step; she never ceased to repeat that she
had never heard of anything so "nasty." Nick would have expected this of
Grace, but he felt rather bereft and betrayed when Biddy murmured to him
that _she_ knew--that there was really no need of their sacrificing
their mother's comfort to an extravagant scruple. She intimated that if
Nick would only consent to their going on with Broadwood as if nothing
had happened--or rather as if everything had happened--she would answer
for the feelings of the owner. For almost the first time in his life
Nick disliked what Biddy said to him, and he gave her a sharp rejoinder,
a taste of the general opinion that they all had enough to do to answer
for themselves. He remembered afterwards the way she looked at
him--startled, even frightened and with rising tears--before turning
away. He held that they should judge better how Julia would take it
after they had thrown up the place; and he made it his duty to arrange
that his mother should formally advise her, by letter, of their
intending to depart at once. Julia could then protest to her heart's
content. Nick was aware that for the most part he didn't pass for
practical; he could imagine why, from his early years, people should
have joked him about it. But this time he was determined to rest on a
rigid view of things as they were. He didn't sec his mother's letter,
but he knew that it went. He felt she would have been more loyal if she
had shown it to him, though of course there could be but little question
of loyalty now. That it had really been written, however, very much on
the lines he dictated was clear to him from the subsequent surprise
which Lady Agnes's blankness didn't prevent his divining.

Julia acknowledged the offered news, but in unexpected terms: she had
apparently neither resisted nor protested; she had simply been very glad
to get her house back again and had not accused any of them of
nastiness. Nick saw no more of her letter than he had seen of his
mother's, but he was able to say to Grace--to their parent he was
studiously mute--"My poor child, you see after all that we haven't