greater part of
this autumn. A few men went down for the grouse shooting late in the
season; but they stayed but a short time, and when they went Lady
Laura was left alone with her husband. Mr. Kennedy had explained to
his wife, more than once, that though he understood the duties of
hospitality and enjoyed the performance of them, he had not married
with the intention of living in a whirlwind. He was disposed to think
that the whirlwind had hitherto been too predominant, and had said so
very plainly with a good deal of marital authority. This autumn and
winter were to be devoted to the cultivation of proper relations
between him and his wife. "Does that mean Darby and Joan?" his wife
had asked him, when the proposition was made to her. "It means mutual
regard and esteem," replied Mr. Kennedy in his most solemn tone,
"and I trust that such mutual regard and esteem between us may yet
be possible." When Lady Laura showed him a letter from her brother,
received some weeks after this conversation, in which Lord Chiltern
expressed his intention of coming to Loughlinter for Christmas, he
returned the note to his wife without a word. He suspected that she
had made the arrangement without asking him, and was angry; but he
would not tell her that her brother would not be welcome at his
house. "It is not my doing," she said, when she saw the frown on his
brow.

"I said nothing about anybody's doing," he replied.

"I will write to Oswald and bid him not come, if you wish it. Of
course you can understand why he is coming."

"Not to see me, I am sure," said Mr. Kennedy.

"Nor me," replied Lady Laura. "He is coming because my friend Violet
Effingham will be here."

"Miss Effingham! Why was I not told of this? I knew nothing of Miss
Effingham's coming."

"Robert, it was settled in your own presence last July."

"I deny it."

Then Lady Laura rose up, very haughty in her gait and with something
of fire in her eye, and silently left the room. Mr. Kennedy, when he
found himself alone, was very unhappy. Looking back in his mind to
the summer weeks in London, he remembered that his wife had told
Violet that she was to spend her Christmas at Loughlinter, that he
himself had given a muttered assent and that Violet,--as far as he
could remember,--had made no reply. It had been one of those things
which are so often mentioned, but not settled. He felt that he had
been strictly right in denying that it had been "settled" in his
pres