and Sir Hugh, though he might have been unwilling to give his sister-in-law money out of his own pocket had performed his duty as a brother-in-law in looking to her future welfare.  Julia Brabazon had no doubt that she was doing well.  Poor Harry Clavering!  She had loved him in the days of her romance.  She, too, had written her sonnets.  But she had grown old earlier in life than he had done, and had taught herself that romance could not be allowed to a woman in her position.  She was highly born, the daughter of a peer, without money, and even without a home to which she had any claim.  Of course she had accepted Lord Ongar, but she had not put out her hand to take all these good things without resolving that she would do her duty to her future lord.  The duty would be doubtless disagreeable, but she would do it with all the more diligence on that account.

September passed by, hecatombs of partridges were slaughtered, and the day of the wedding drew nigh.  It was pretty to see Lord Ongar and the self-satisfaction which he enjoyed at this time.  The world was becoming young with him again, and he thought that he rather liked the respectability of his present mode of life.  He gave himself but scanty allowances of wine, and no allowance of anything stronger than wine, and did not dislike his temperance.  There was about him at all hours an air which seemed to say, “There; I told you all that I could do it as soon as there was any necessity.”  And in these halcyon days he could shoot for an hour without his pony, and he liked the gentle, courteous badinage which was bestowed upon his courtship, and he liked also Julia’s beauty.  Her conduct to him was perfect.  She was never pert, never exigeant, never romantic, and never humble.  She never bored him, and yet was always ready to be with him when he wished it.  She was never exalted; and yet she bore her high place as became a woman nobly born and acknowledged to be beautiful.

“I declare you have quite made a lover of him,” said Lady Clavering to her sister.  When a thought of the match had first arisen in Sir Hugh’s London house, Lady Clavering had been eager in praise of Lord Ongar, or eager in praise rather of the position which the future Lady Ongar might hold; but since the prize had been secured, since it had become plain that Julia was to be the greater woman of the two, she had harped sometimes on the other string.  As a sister she had striven for a sister’s welfare, but as a woman she could not keep herself from comparisons which might tend to show that after all, well as Julia was doing, she was not doing better than her elder sister had done.  Hermione had married simply a baronet, and not the richest or the most amiable among baronets; but she had married a man suitable in age and wealth, with whom any girl might have been in love.  She had not sold herself to be the nurse, or not to be the nurse, as it might turn out, of a worn-out debauche.  She would have hinted nothing of this, perhaps have thought nothing of this, had not Julia and Lord Ongar walked together through the Clavering groves as though they were two young people.  She owed it as a duty to her sister to point out that Lord Ongar could not be a romantic young person, and ought not to be encouraged to play that part.