“And no one has said a word of any cloud.  It is better he should know nothing.”

“And oh!  Julius, is it true that her father has bought Sirenwood for her?”

“Quite true.  You know it was proposed at first, but the trustees doubted of the title; but when all that was cleared up, it turned out to be a better investment than Swanslea, and so they settled it, without much reference to her.”

“She will let it, of course?”

“I suppose so.”

“You don’t think she will come to the christening?”

“I cannot tell; Rose has had one or two very sad letters from her.  She wanted us very much to come to Dunstone, and was much disappointed that we were prevented.  I fancy her heart has turned to us, and that it is very sore, poor thing.”

Julius was right.  Cecil did return an answer, whose warmth quite amazed all but Miles and Anne, who thought nothing too much for their son; and she gladly came to attend the christening of the young Raymond.  Gladly—­yes, she was glad to leave Dunstone.  She had gone home weary and sick of her lodging and convalescence, and hoping to find relief in the home that had once been all-sufficient for her, but Dunstone was not changed, and she was.  She had not been able to help outgrowing its narrow opinions and formal precisions; and when she came home, crushed with her scarcely realized grief, nothing there had power to comfort her.

There was soothing at first in her step-mother’s kindness, and she really loved her father; but their petting admiration soon grew oppressive, after the more bracing air of Compton; and their idolatry of her little brother fretted and tried her all the more, because they thought he must be a comfort to her, and any slight from her might be misconstrued.  Mr. Venn’s obsequiousness, instead of rightful homage, seemed deprivation of support, and she saw no one, spoke to no one, without the sense of Raymond’s vast superiority and her own insensibility to it, loving him a thousand times more than she had loved him in life, and mourning him with an anguish beyond what the most perfect union would have left.  She had nothing to do.  Self-improvement was a mere oppression, and she longed after nothing so much as the sight of Rosamond, Anne, Julius, or even Frank, and her amiable wishes prevailed to have them invited to Dunstone; but at the times specified there were hindrances.  Anne had engagements at home, and Rosamond appeared to the rest of the family to be a perpetual refuge for stray De Lanceys, while Frank had to make up for his long enforced absence by a long unbroken spell of work.