'Never so known hitherto,' returned her husband. 'My wife is Mrs.
James Frost, if you please.'

'That is over now,' said Oliver, consequentially; and as his mother
presented to him 'poor Henry's little Clara,' he kissed her
affectionately, saying, 'Well-grown young lady, upon my word! Like
her father--that's right.'

'Here is almost another grandchild,' said Mrs. Frost--'Louis
Fitzjocelyn--not much like the Fitzjocelyn you remember, but a new
M.P. as he was then.'

'Humph!' said Oliver, with a dry sound, apparently expressing, 'So
that is what our Parliament is made of. Father well?' he asked.

'Quite well, thank you, sir.'

Oliver levelled his keen eyes on him, as though noting down
observations, while he was burning for tidings of Mary, yet held back
by reserve and sense of the uncongeniality of the man. His aunt,
however, in the midst of her own joy, marked his restless eye, and
put the question, whether Mary Ponsonby had arrived?

'Ha! you let her go, did you?' said Oliver, turning on Louis. 'I
told her father you'd be no such fool. He was in a proper rage at
your letter, but it would have blown over if you had stuck by her,
and he is worth enough to set you all on your legs.'

Louis could not bring himself to make any answer, and his mother