up."

"I have no doubt you did the best you could," said Raymond, speaking
with more like censure of his mother than he had ever done since the
hot days of his love for Camilla Vivian; "and you could have had
nothing to do with the personalities that seem to have been the
sting."

Mrs. Poynsett, true boy-lover that she was, had been informed of the
success of Tom's naughtiness--not indeed till after it was over,
when there was nothing to be done but to shake her head and laugh;
and now she explained so that her son came to a better understanding
of what had happened.

As to the extinguishing Women's Rights in child's play, he saw that
it had been a wise manoeuvre of his mother, to spare any appearance
of dissension, while preventing what she disapproved and what might
have injured his interests; but he was much annoyed with the De
Lanceys for having clogged the measure with their own folly; and
judging of cause by effect, he would hear of no excuse for Rosamond
or her brothers, and went away resolved that though nothing should
induce him to quarrel with Julius, yet he should tell him plainly
that he must restrain his wife and her brothers from annoying Cecil
by their practical jokes. He was, as usual, perfectly gentle to his
mother, and thanked her for her arrangement. "It was not her fault
that it had not turned out better," he said; and he did not seem to
hear her exoneration of Rosamond.

He had scarcely gone when Rosamond came in from the village, asking
whether he had arrived, as she had seen his hat in the hall.