head on
high.

But, before the week was over, Mrs Clavering--for we will still call her
so--had broken Lady Ongar's spirit by her kindness, and the poor, woman
who had so much to bear had brought herself to speak of the weight of
her burden. Julia had, on one occasion, called her Lady Clavering, and
for the moment this had been allowed to pass without observation. The
widowed lady was then present, and no notice of the name was possible.
But soon afterward Mrs. Clavering made her little request on the
subject. "I do not quite know what the custom may be," she said, "but do
not call me so just yet. It will only be reminding Hermy of her
bereavement."

"She is thinking of it always," said Julia.

"No doubt she is; but still the new name would wound her. And, indeed,
it perplexes me also. Let it come by-and-by, when we are more settled."

Lady Ongar had truly said that her sister was as yet always thinking of
her bereavement. To her now it was as though the husband she had lost
had been a paragon among men. She could only remember of him his
manliness, his power--a dignity of presence which he possessed--and the
fact that to her he had been everything. She thought of that last vain
caution which she had given him when with her hardly-permitted last
embrace she had besought him to take care of himself. She did not
remember now how coldly that embrace had been received, how completely
those words had been taken as meaning nothing, how he had left her not
only without a sign of affection, but without an attempt to repress the
evidences of his indifference. But she did remember that she had had her
arm upon his shoulder, and tried to think of that embrace as though it
had been sweet to her. And she did remember how she had stood at the
window, listening to the sounds of the wheels which took him off, and
watching his form as long as her eye could rest upon it. Ah! what
falsehoods she told herself now of her love to him, and of his goodness
to her--pious falsehoods which would surely tend to bring some comfort
to her wounded spirit.

But her sister could hardly bear to hear the praises of Sir Hugh. When
she found how it was to be, she resolved that she would bear them--bear
them, and not contradict them; but her struggle in doing so was great,
and was almost too much for her.

"He had judged me and condemned me," she said at last, "and therefore,
as a matter of course, we were not such friends when we last met as we
us