"Very odd," she said--"very odd, and very unpleasant. You're sure it was a woman's hand, dear? People do make such mistakes about that sometimes. Most dreadful, indeed! Well, that's one blessing, I've often thought, with Gustav, and is some compensation for his grayness and his being so much older, and that sort of thing. For grayness is better than jealousy, isn't it, dear? and I'm sure it's pleasanter to think of your husband at whist than waltzing, as some of them do--whirling about the room as though there were no such thing as the marriage service And letters too, that's awful! I'm so glad you came here, Barbara darling; and so will Gustav be, when he comes in. We must tell him all about it. I tell him every thing now, he is _so_ kind." He was _very_ kind, this heavy-headed elderly German merchant. When he came in, his wife at once told him what had occurred; and when he met Barbara in the drawing-room, before dinner, he took her hands in both of his, and pressed his lips gravely on her forehead, and bade her welcome, and told her to consider his house as her home. For Mr. Schröder had, in his strange old-fashioned way, a very keen sense of honour and of the respect due to women; and he felt, from the story that had been told to him, that Barbara's feelings had to a certain extent been outraged. He had never held much good opinion of the literary craft: he could not understand a calling which did not employ clerks and keep ledgers and day-books, which did not minister to any absolute requirement, and which only represented something visionary and fanciful. He shared in a very widespread notion that the _morale_ of people engaged in that and similar pursuits was specially liable to deterioration; and he took what he understood to be Frank Churchill's defection from the paths of propriety as an indorsement of his idea, and a proof that he had been right in its adoption. He happened to let fall some remark to this effect, a few words only, and not strongly or savagely put, but they had immense weight with Barbara Churchill.