it sounded very well.  And she thought of the figure of the man and of his nature, and she knew that he would bear it with a becoming manliness.  Sir Harry Clavering would be somebody in his county—­would be a husband of whom his wife would be proud as he went about among his tenants and his gamekeepers, and perhaps on wider and better journeys, looking up the voters of his neighborhood.  Yes, happy would be the wife of Sir Harry Clavering.  He was a man who would delight in sharing his house, his hope; his schemes and councils with his wife.  He would find a companion in his wife.  He would do honor to his wife, and make much of her.  He would like to see her go bravely.  And then, if children came, how tender he would be to them!  Whether Harry could ever have become a good head to a poor household might be doubtful, but no man had ever been born fitter for the position which he was now called upon to fill.  It was thus that Lady Ongar thought of Harry Clavering as she owned to herself that the full measure of her just retribution had come home to her.

Of course she would go at once to Clavering Park.  She wrote to her sister saying so, and the next day she started.  She started so quickly on her journey that she reached the house not very many hours after her own letter.  She was there when the rector started for London, and there when Mr. Fielding preached his sermon; but she did not see Mr. Clavering before he went, nor was she present to hear the eloquence of the younger clergyman.  Till after that Sunday the only member of the family she had seen was Mrs. Clavering, who spent some period of every day up at the great house.  Mrs. Clavering had not hitherto seen Lady Ongar since her return, and was greatly astonished at the change which so short a time had made.  “She is handsomer than ever she was,” Mrs. Clavering said to the rector; “-but it is that beauty which some women carry into middle life, and not the loveliness of youth.”  Lady Ongar’s manner was cold and stately when first she met Mrs. Clavering.  It was on the morning of her marriage when they had last met—­when Julia Brabazon was resolving that she would look like a countess, and that to be a countess should be enough for her happiness.  She could not but remember this now, and was unwilling at first to make confession of her failure by any meekness of conduct.  It behooved her to be proud, at any rate till she should know how this new Lady Clavering would receive her.  And then it was more than probable that this new Lady Clavering knew all that had taken place between her and Harry.  It behooved her, therefore, to hold her head on high.

But, before the week was over, Mrs Clavering—­for we will still call her so—­had broken Lady Ongar’s spirit by her kindness, and the poor, woman who had so much to bear had brought herself to speak of the weight of her burden.  Julia had, on one occasion, called her Lady Clavering, and for the moment this had been allowed to pass without observation.  The widowed lady was then present, and no notice of the name was possible.  But soon afterward Mrs. Clavering made her little request on the subject.  “I do not quite know what the custom may be,” she said, “but do not call me so just yet.  It will only be reminding Hermy of her bereavement.”