‘How did you get Lucy to consent?’

’Poor dear, it was a melancholy business; but she had so often been in alarm about him, and had suffered so much from having to leave him with people she did not trust, that she caught at the proposal before she fairly contemplated what the parting would be; and when she did, Algernon was too glad to be relieved from him not to keep her up to it, but it wont do to think of it, she has her baby, who is healthier, and if they remain abroad, I suspect we shall keep little Ralph altogether; he is a dear little fellow, and Sophy has so taken possession of Albinia, that I should be quite lost if I did not set up a private child.

‘What do you call him?  I thought his name was Belraven.’

’I could not possibly call him so; and his aunts, by way of adding to the aviary, made him Ralph the Raven, so I mean it to stick by him; I believe papa has forgotten the other dreadful fact, for I caught him giving his name as Ralph Cavendish Dusautoy.  How the dear vicar of Bayford will devour him! and what work I shall have to keep him from being spoilt!’

‘Then you think they will remain abroad?’

‘Algernon hates England; and all his habits are foreign.’

‘Did he make himself tolerably agreeable?’

’He really did.  One could bear to be patronized by one’s host better than by one’s guest, and he was in wholesome awe of William.  Besides, he is really at home in Italy, and knows his way about so well, that he was not a bad Cicerone.  I am sure Sophy could never have done either Vesuvius or Pompeii without his arrangements; and as long as he had a victim for his catalogue raisonnee, he was very placable and obliging.  That was all extracts, so it really was not so bad.’

‘So you were satisfied?’

’He has a bad lot about him, that’s the worst—­Polish counts, disreputable artists and poets, any one who has a spurious sort of fame, and knows how to flatter him.  Edmund was terribly disgusted.’

‘Very bad for his wife.’

’You see, she is a thorough-going mother, and no linguist.  She really is improved, and I like her more really than ever I could, poor dear.  I believe her head was once quite turned, and that he influenced her entirely, and made her forget everything else; but she has a heart, though not much of a head, and sorrow and illness and children have brought it out, and she is what a ‘very woman’ becomes, I suppose, if there be any good in her, an abstract wife and mother.’

‘Was it not dangerous to take away her child?’

’There was another, you know, and it was to save his life.  The duties clashed, and were destroying all comfort.’

‘How does he behave to her?’