ad distinguished himself; "and in the meantime the girls and
you will have time to look about you. Highcombe is rather a dull place.
And then the house is large. You could not get on in it with less than
four or five servants."

"Four would do," said Mr. Longstaffe.

"And supposing my cousin kept a pony chaise, or something? She could not
get on without a pony chaise. That means another."

Theodore pushed back his chair from the table with a harsh peremptoriness,
startling them all. "I am sure my mother doesn't want to go into these
calculations," he said; "neither do I. Leave us alone to settle what we
find to be best."

"Dear me," said cousin Warrender, "I hope you don't imagine me to have
any wish to interfere." Theo did not make any reply, but gave his mother
his arm, and led her upstairs.

"I did not wish you to be troubled with business at all; certainly not
to-day," he said to her, half apologetically. But there was something
in her face which he did not quite understand, as she thanked him and
smiled, with an inclination to cry. Was it possible that she was a
little disappointed to have the discussion stopped, and that she took
much interest in it, and contemplated not at all with displeasure the
prospect of an entire change in her life?

CHAPTER IV.

It will be divined from what has been said that there was one element in
the life at the Warren which has not yet been entered into, and that was
Mrs. Warrender. The family were dull, respectable, and proper to their
fingers' ends. But she was not dull. She had been Mr. Warrender's wife
for six-and-twenty years,--the wife of a dull, good man, who never wanted
any variety in his life, who needed no change, no outbursts of laughter
or tears, nothing to carry away the superabundance of the waters of life.
With him there had been no superabundance, there had never been any
floods; consequently there was no outlet necessary to carry them away.
But she was a woman of another sort: she was born to hunger for variety,
to want change, to desire everything that was sweet and pleasant. And
lo! fate bound her to the dullest life,--to marry Mr. Warrender, to live
in the Warren. She had not felt it so much in the earlier part of her
life, for then she had to some extent what her spirit craved. She had
children: and every such event in a woman's life is like what going
into battle is to a man,--a thing for which all his spirits collect
themselves, which she may co