"But on the fire burns, clear and still;
     The cankering sorrow dies;
     The small wounds heal; the clouds are rent,
     And through this shattered mortal tent
     Shine down the eternal skies."

“Dr. Grey, as to-day is your ’at home’—­at least, as much of an ‘at home’ as is possible under the circumstances—­I wished to inquire, once for all, what is to be done about the Fergusons?”

“About whom?  I beg pardon.  Henrietta, but what were you talking about?”

Which, as she had been talking “even on” all breakfast-time, either to or at the little circle, including Letitia and Arthur, was not an unnecessary question.

“I referred to your wife’s friends and late employers, the Fergusons, of High Street.  As she was married from their house, and as, of course, they will only be too glad to keep up her acquaintance, they will doubtless appear to-day.  In that case, much as we should regret it, your sister and myself must decline being present.  We can not possibly admit such people into our society.  Isn’t it so—­eh, Maria?”

Maria, thus sharply appealed to, answered with her usual monosyllable.

Dr. Grey looked at his wife in a puzzled, absent way.  He was very absent—­there was no doubt of it—­and sometimes, seemed as shut up in himself as if he had lived a bachelor all his life.  Besides, he did not readily take in the small wrongs—­petty offenses—­which make half the misery of domestic life, and are equally contemptible in the offender and the offended.  There was something pathetically innocent in the way he said.

“I really do not quite understand.  Christian, what does it all mean?”

“It means,” said Christian, trying hard to restrain an indignant answer, “that Miss Gascoigne is giving herself a great deal of needless trouble about a thing which will never happen.  My friends, the Fergusons, may call to-day—­I did not invite them, though I shall certainly not shut the door upon them—­but they have no intention whatever of being on visiting terms at the Lodge, nor have I of asking them.”

“I am glad to hear it,” said Miss Gascoigne—­“glad to see that you have so much good taste and proper feeling, and that all my exertions in bringing you—­as I hope to do to-day—­for the first time into our society will not be thrown away.”

Christian was not a very proud woman—­that is, her pride lay too deep below the surface to be easily ruffled, but she could not bear this.

“If by our ‘society’ you mean my husband’s friends, to whom he is to introduce me, I shall be most happy always to welcome them to his house; but if you imply that I am to exclude my own—­honest, worthy, honorable people, uneducated though they may be—­I must altogether decline agreeing with you.  I shall do no such thing.”