and May he would go up to town, leaving Mrs Askerton at the cottage as
to which, probably jovial, absence in the metropolis there seemed to be
no spirit of grudging on the part of the wife. On the first of
September a friend would come to the cottage and remain there for six
weeks' shooting: and during the winter the Colonel and his wife always
went to Paris for a fortnight. Such had been their life for the last
two years; and thus so said Mrs Askerton to Clara did they intend to
live as long as they could keep the cottage at Belton. Society at
Belton they had none, and as they said desired none. Between them and
Mr Wright there was only a speaking acquaintance. The married curate at
Redicote would not let his wife call on Mrs Askerton, and the unmarried
curate was a hard-worked, clerical hack a parochial minister at all
times and seasons, who went to no houses except the houses of the poor,
and who would hold communion with no man, and certainly with no woman,
who would not put up with clerical admonitions for Sunday backslidings.
Mr Amedroz himself neither received guests nor went as a guest to other
men's houses. He would occasionally stand for a while at the gate of
the Colonel's garden, and repeat the list of his own woes as long as
his neighbour would stand there to hear it. But there was no society at
Belton, and Clara, as far as she herself was aware, was the only person
with whom Mrs Askerton held any social intercourse, except what she
might have during her short annual holiday in Paris.

'Of course, you are right,' she said, when Clara told her of the
proposed coming of Mr Belton. 'If he turn out to be a good fellow, you
will have gained a great deal. And should he be a bad, fellow, you will
have lost nothing. In either case you will know him, and considering
how he stands towards you, that itself is desirable.'

'But if he should annoy papa?'