ht be made to assume some
permanence. This would be very pleasant to him. Of course he would pay a
portion of the expense--as small a portion as might be possible--but
such a portion as might enable him to live with credit before the world.

"I wish I could think that you and Hermy might be together while I am
absent," he said.

"I shall be very happy to have her, if she will come to me," Julia
replied.

"What--here, in London? I am not quite sure that she wishes to come up
to London at present."

"I have never understood that she had any objection to being in town,"
said Lady Ongar.

"Not formerly, certainly; but now, since her boy's death--"

"Why should his death make more difference to her than to you?" To this
question Sir Hugh made no reply. "If you are thinking of society, she
could be nowhere safer from any such necessity than with me. I never go
out anywhere. I have never dined out, or even spent an evening in
company, since Lord Ongar's death. And no one would come here to disturb
her."

"I didn't mean that."

"I don't quite know what you did mean. From different causes, she and I
are left pretty nearly equally without friends."

"Hermione is not left without friends," said Sir Hugh, with a tone of
offence.

"Were she not, she would not want to come to me. Your society is in
London, to which she does not come, or in other country houses than your
own, to which she is not taken. She lives altogether at Clavering, and
there is no one there except your uncle."

"Whatever neighborhood there is she has--just like other women."

"Just like some other women, no doubt. I shall remain in town for
another month, and after that I shall go somewhere, I don't much care
where. If Hermy will come to me as my guest, I shall be most happy to
have her; and the longer she will stay with me the better. Your coming
home need make no difference, I suppose."

There was a keenness of reproach in her tone as she spoke which even he
could not but feel and acknowledge. He was very thick-skinned to such
reproaches, and would have left this unnoticed had it been possible. Had
she continued speaking he would have done so. But she remained silent,
and sat looking at him, saying with her eyes the same thing that she had
already spoken with her words. Thus he was driven to speak. "I don't
know," said he, "whether you intend that for a sneer."

She was perfectly indifferent whether or no she offended him. Only that
she had b