said, there must be
some understanding. I like Captain De Baron very much, as I dare say
you like other ladies. Why not?"

"I have never suspected anything."

"But Susanna did. Of course you don't like all this, George. I don't
like it. I have been so miserable that I have almost cried my eyes out.
But if people will make mischief, what is one to do? The only thing is
not to have the mischief maker any more."

The worst of this was, to him, that she was so manifestly getting the
better of him! When he had married her, not yet nine months since, she
had been a little girl, altogether in his hands, not pretending to any
self-action, and anxious to be guided in everything by him. His only
fear had been that she might be too slow in learning that
self-assertion which is necessary from a married woman to the world at
large. But now she had made very great progress in the lesson, not only
as regarded the world at large, but as regarded himself also. As for
his family,--the grandeur of his family,--she clearly had no reverence
for that. Lady Susanna, though generally held to be very awful, had
been no more to her than any other Susan. He almost wished that he had
told her that he did object to Jack De Baron. There would have been a
scene, of course; and she, not improbably, might have told her father.
That at present would have been doubly disagreeable, as it was
incumbent upon him to stand well with the Dean, just at this time.
There was this battle to be fought with his brother, and he felt that
he could not fight it without the Dean!

Having given his sanction to Jack De Baron, he went away to his club to
write his letter. This writing really amounted to no more than copying
the Dean's words, which he had carried in his pocket ever since he had
left the deanery, and the Dean's words were as follows:--

"Munster Court, _26th April, 187--_.

"MY DEAR BROTHERTON,--I am compelled to write to you under very
disagreeable circumstances, and to do so on a subject which I
would willingly avoid if a sense of duty would permit me to be
silent.

"You will remember that you wrote to me in October last, telling
me that you were about to be married. 'I am to be married to the
Marchesa Luigi,' were your words. Up to that moment we had heard
nothing of the lady or of any arrangement as to a marriage. When I
told you of my own intended marriage a few months before that, you
mere