"When I marry," observed Betty, "I'm going to keep hens, speckley yellow ones. You know the sort, Baby, same as the one you chooced out of Aunt Brenny's garden." "Chased," corrected Caroline. "Chased," said Betty, then, in a different tone, "How _red_ you are, Caroline, quite like as if you was boiled." "Well," said Mr. Brenton in his quiet way, "you were saying the other day you wanted him to marry, you know." "So I do," agreed Agnes Brenton, "but I did not suppose he would care about an American wife." They discussed the probable union for some time. It struck Caroline as so strange that both these people should regard it as natural and certain that he should marry, and not from a mere sense of duty, but from inclination, even from affection. "Do they forget so easily?" she asked herself. CHAPTER XXI At Christmas-time Mrs. Cuthbert Baynhurst joined the Yelverton party unexpectedly. She wore her beautiful sables, and looked quite radiant when she arrived. As usual, she seemed to charge the atmosphere with excitement of a pleasant nature. "It is _so_ nice to be here!" she declared. "You can't think how tired I am of foreign beds and cooking. Agnes, I hope you are going to give me beef and plum-pudding every day." Mrs. Brenton received her beautiful guest warmly; nevertheless, it was quickly evident to Camilla that there was something on the older woman's mind. "Don't hesitate to send me away if you don't want me," she said easily. "I can easily go back to town, or to Lea Abbey, or--well, anywhere, you know." "Of course I shan't turn you away," said Agnes Brenton. Then she added, colouring a little, "Only I must wire to Rupert; we expected him for Christmas." Camilla laughed ever so prettily. "Dear soul, why should you? We have met already several times. You see," she added, quite seriously, "when things went so horribly bad with Cuthbert and me two months ago, I was obliged to send and ask Rupert to come and help me. And he was _so_ kind. He arranged everything. You know, don't you, that Cuthbert and I have agreed to separate--at any rate, for a little while? Perhaps when he does not find life quite so easy he may alter. His temper, my dear Agnes, is something beyond description; and he is so lazy, and _so_ difficult! And then there are the children. My duty is really to them first of all; and I have neglected them terribly. Rupert suggests I should go back to my own little house, and have a chaperone to live with me. I supposed that Caroline would be quite enough, but from something Rupert said, I fancied, perhaps, she had some new plans in her mind." "I have heard nothing," said Mrs. Brenton. She had listened to this speech with a confusion of feeling. Camilla's easy acceptance of a most difficult position was not, perhaps, so very extraordinary, but other people worked a little more slowly. "I don't quite approve of the little house. Why not stay here?" Mrs. Brenton added.