"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