uch with her
cousin. "I'm my aunt's, body and soul, for the next six weeks," she
said to Alice, when she did come to Queen Anne Street on the morning
after her arrival. "And she is exigeant in a manner I can't at all
explain to you. You mustn't be surprised if I don't even write a
line. I've escaped by stealth now. She went up-stairs to try on some
new weeds for the seaside, and then I bolted." She did not say a
word about George; nor during those three days, nor for some days
afterwards, did George show himself. As it turned out afterwards, he
had gone off to Scotland, and had remained a week among the grouse.
Thus, at least, he had accounted for himself and his movements; but
all George Vavasor's friends knew that his goings out and comings in
were seldom accounted for openly like those of other men.

It will perhaps be as well to say a few words about Mrs Greenow
before we go with her to Yarmouth. Mrs Greenow was the only daughter
and the youngest child of the old squire at Vavasor Hall. She was
just ten years younger than her brother John, and I am inclined to
think that she was almost justified in her repeated assertion that
the difference was much greater than ten years, by the freshness of
her colour, and by the general juvenility of her appearance. She
certainly did not look forty, and who can expect a woman to proclaim
herself to be older than her looks? In early life she had been taken
from her father's house, and had lived with relatives in one of the
large towns in the north of England. It is certain she had not been
quite successful as a girl. Though she had enjoyed the name of being
a beauty, she had not the usual success which comes from such repute.
At thirty-four she was still unmarried. She had, moreover, acquired
the character of being a flirt; and I fear that the stories which
were told of her, though doubtless more than half false, had in
them sufficient of truth to justify the character. Now this was
very sad, seeing that Arabella Vavasor had no fortune, and that she
had offended her father and brothers by declining to comply with
their advice at certain periods of her career. There was, indeed,
considerable trouble in the minds of the various male Vavasors with
reference to Arabella, when tidings suddenly reached the Hall that
she was going to be married to an old man.

She was married to the old man; and the marriage fortunately turned
out satisfactorily, at any rate for the old man and for her