ndoned. He was
afraid of the Dean, and afraid, so to say, of his own promise. The
thing had been stipulated, and he did not know how to go back from the
stipulation.

"Going to leave Manor Cross," said Mary, when she was told. "Dear me;
how odd. Where will they go to?"

It was evident to her husband from the tone of her voice that she
regarded her own house in Munster Court, for it was her own, as her
future residence,--as hers and his. In asking where "they" would live,
she spoke of the other ladies of the family. He had expected that she
would have shown some disappointment at the danger to her future
position which this new marriage would produce. But in regard to that
she was, he thought, either perfectly indifferent, or else a very good
actor. In truth, she was almost indifferent. The idea that she might
some day be Lady Brotherton had been something to her, but not much.
Her happiness was not nearly as much disturbed by this marriage as it
had been by the allusion made to her dress. She herself could hardly
understand the terrible gloom which seemed during that evening and the
whole of the next day to have fallen on the entire family.

"George, does it make you very unhappy?" she said, whispering to him on
the morning of the second day.

"Not that my brother should marry," he said, "God forbid that I, as a
younger brother, should wish to debar him from any tittle of what
belongs to him. If he would marry well it ought to be a joy to us all."

"Is not this marrying well?"

"What, with a foreigner; with an Italian widow? And then there will, I
fear, be great trouble in finding a comfortable home for my mother."

"Amelia says she can go to Cross Hall."

"Amelia does not know what she is talking of. It would be very long
before they could get into Cross Hall, even if they can go there at
all. It would have to be completely furnished, and there is no money to
furnish it."

"Wouldn't your brother----?" Lord George shook his head. "Or papa."
Lord George again shook his head--"What will they do?"

"If it were not for our house in London we might take a place in the
country together," said Lord George.

All the various facts of the proposition now made to her flashed upon
Mary's mind at once. Had it been suggested to her, when she was first
asked to marry Lord George, that she should live permanently in a
country house with his mother and sisters, in a house of which she
would not be and could not be the mist