tic life when she talked of cousinship between her and Harry
Clavering. Her sister was the wife of Harry Clavering's first cousin,
but between her and Harry there was no relationship whatever. When old
Lord Brabazon had died at Nice she had come to Clavering Park, and had
created some astonishment among those who knew Sir Hugh by making good
her footing in his establishment. He was not the man to take up a wife's
sister, and make his house her home, out of charity or from domestic
love. Lady Clavering, who had been a handsome woman and fashionable
withal, no doubt may have had some influence; but Sir Hugh was a man
much prone to follow his own courses. It must be presumed that Julia
Brabazon had made herself agreeable in the house, and also probably
useful. She had been taken to London through two seasons, and had there
held up her head among the bravest. And she had been taken abroad--for
Sir Hugh did not love Clavering Park, except during six weeks of
partridge shooting; and she had been at Newmarket with them, and at the
house of a certain fast hunting duke with whom Sir Hugh was intimate;
and at Brighton with her sister, when it suited Sir Hugh to remain alone
at the duke's; and then again up in London, where she finally arranged
matters with Lord Ongar. It was acknowledged by all the friends of the
two families, and indeed I may say of the three families now--among the
Brabazon people, and the Clavering people, and the Courton people--Lord
Ongar's family name was Courton--that Julia Brabazon had been very
clever. Of her and Harry Clavering together no one had ever said a word.
If any words had been spoken between her and Hermione on the subject,
the two sisters had been discreet enough to manage that they should go
no further.

In those short months of Julia's romance Sir Hugh had been away from
Clavering, and Hermione had been much occupied in giving birth to an
heir. Julia had now lived past her one short spell of poetry, had
written her one sonnet, and was prepared for the business of the world.

Chapter II

Harry Clavering Chooses His Profession

Harry Clavering might not be an usher, but, nevertheless, he was home
for the holidays. And who can say where the usher ends and the
school-master begins? He, perhaps, may properly be called an usher, who
is hired by a private schoolmaster to assist himself in his private
occupation, whereas Harry Clavering had been selected by a public body
out of a hund