“Oh, mamma, why should you be so hard?”

“I am hard, because I will not allow you to accept a young man who has, I believe, behaved very badly, and who has got nothing of his own.”

“He is his uncle’s heir.”

“We know what that may come to.  Mountjoy was his father’s heir; and nothing could be entailed more strictly than Tretton.  We know what entails have come to there.  Mr. Prosper will find some way of escaping from it.  Entails go for nothing now; and I hear that he thinks so badly of his nephew that he has already quarrelled with him.  And he is quite a young man himself.  I cannot think how you can be so foolish,—­you, who declared that you are throwing your cousin over because he is no longer to have all his father’s property.”

“Oh, mamma, that is not true.”

“Very well, my dear.”

“I never allowed it to be said in my name that I was engaged to my cousin Mountjoy.”

“Very well, I will never allow it to be said in my name that with my consent you are engaged to Mr. Henry Annesley.”

Six or seven days after this they were settled together most uncomfortably in a hotel at Boulogne.  Mrs. Mountjoy had gone there because there was no other retreat to which she could take her daughter, and because she had resolved to remove her from beyond the sphere of Harry Annesley’s presence.  She had at first thought of Ostend; but it had seemed to her that Ostend was within the kingdom reigned over by Sir Magnus and that there would be some impropriety in removing from thence to the capital in which Sir Magnus was reigning.  It was as though you were to sojourn for three days at the park-gates before you were entertained at the mansion.  Therefore they stayed at Boulogne, and Mrs. Mountjoy tried the bathing, cold as the water was with equinoctial gales, in order that there might be the appearance of a reason for her being at Boulogne.  And for company’s sake, in the hope of maintaining some fellowship with her mother, Florence bathed also.  “Mamma, he has not written again,” said Florence, coming up one day from the stand.

“I suppose that you are impatient.”

“Why should there be a quarrel between us?  I am not impatient.  If you would only believe me, it would be so much more happy for both of us.  You always used to believe me.”

“That was before you knew Mr. Harry Annesley.”

There was something in this very aggravating,—­something specially intended to excite angry feelings.  But Florence determined to forbear.  “I think you may believe me, mamma.  I am your own daughter, and I shall not deceive you.  I do consider myself engaged to Mr. Annesley.”

“You need not tell me that.”

“But while I am living with you I will promise not to receive letters from him without your leave.  If one should come I will bring it to you, unopened, so that you may deal with it as though it had been delivered to yourself.  I care nothing about my uncle as to this affair.  What he may say cannot affect me, but what you say does affect me very much.  I will promise neither to write nor to hear from Mr. Annesley for three months.  Will not that satisfy you?” Mrs. Mountjoy would not say that it did satisfy her; but she somewhat mitigated her treatment of her daughter till they arrived together at Sir Magnus’s mansion.