Lilias Mohun had married a soldier, and after many wanderings through
military stations, the health and education of a large proportion of
her family had necessitated her remaining at home with them, while her
husband held a command in India, taking out with him the two grown-up
daughters and the second son, who was on his staff. She was
established in a large house not far from a country town, for the
convenience of daily governess, tutor, and masters. She herself had
grown up on the old system which made education depend more on the
family than on the governess, and she preferred honestly the company
and training of her children to going into society in her husband's
absence. Therefore she arranged her habits with a view to being
constantly with them, and though exchanging calls, and occasionally
accepting invitations in the neighbourhood, it was an understood thing
that she went out very little. The chief exceptions were when her
eldest son, Harry, was at home from Oxford. He was devotedly fond of
her, and all the more pleased and proud to take her about with him
because it had not always been possible that his holidays in his school
life should be spent at home, and thus the privilege was doubly prized.

The two sisters above and one brother below him were in India with
their father, and Gillian was not yet out of the schoolroom, though
this did not cut her off from being her mother's prime companion. Then
followed a schoolboy at Wellington, named Jasper, two more girls, a
brace of boys, and the five-year-old baby of the establishment--
sufficient reasons to detain Lady Merrifield in England after more than
twenty years of travels as a soldier's wife, so that scarcely three of
her children had the same birthplace. She had been able to see very
little of her English relations, being much tied by the number of her
children while all were very young, and the expense of journeys; but