Therefore very various causes combined to reconcile her to the coming
adventure. Indeed she set forth on it with so cheerful a countenance,
that Richard, while charmed, was also a trifle surprised by the
alacrity with which she embraced it. He regarded her somewhat
critically, questioning whether his mother was of a more worldly and
light-minded disposition than he had heretofore supposed.

There had been some talk of Julius March joining the contemplated
exodus. But he had declined, smiling rather sadly.

"No, no," he said. "To go would be a mistake and a weakly selfish one
on my part. I have long ceased to be a man of cities, and am best
employed, and indeed am most at my ease, herding my few sheep here in
the wilderness. I am part and parcel of just all that which we have
agreed it is wise you shall leave behind you for a while. My presence
would lessen the thoroughness of the change of scene and of thought.
You take up a way of life which was familiar to you years ago. The
habits of it will soon come back. I have never known them. I should be
a hindrance, rather than a help. No, I will wait and keep the lamps
burning before the altar, and the fire burning upon the hearth
until--and, please God, it may be in peace, crowned with good
fortune--you both come back."

But the adventure, fairly embarked on, displayed quite other
characteristics--as is the way with such skittish folk--than Katherine
had anticipated. Against possibilities of mortification, against
possibilities of covert laughter and the pointing fingers of the crowd,
she had steeled herself. But it had not occurred to her that both
Richard's trial and her own might take the form of an exuberant and
slightly vulgar popularity, and that, far from being shoved aside into
the gutter, the young man might be hoisted, with general acclamation,
on to the very throne of Vanity Fair.

The Brockhurst establishment moved up to town at the beginning of
April. And by the end of the month, Sir Richard Calmady, his wealth,
his house, his horses, his dinners, his mother's gracious beauty, and a
certain mystery which surrounded him, came to be in every one's mouth.
A new star had arisen in the social firmament, and all and sundry
gathered to observe the reported brightness of its shining. Rich,
young, good-looking, well-connected, and strangely unfortunate, here
indeed was a novel and telling attraction among the somewhat fly-blown
shows of Vanity Fair! Many-tongued rumo