“Oh, nothing particular--nothing out of the ordinary,” he said; “I wonder though, that, knowing all the circumstances as you do, you should not make an effort, mother, to prevent Amanda from exciting herself. Of course, she is ill to-day. I told you before I married what was the state of affairs; _she_ may deserve it if you please, but I don’t deserve it, and the worst always falls on me. I do think you and Nelly between you might, at least manage to keep the peace.” “Frederick! you seem quite unaware of how it all happened,” cried his mother, suddenly roused to a movement of self-defence. “I know how it all turned out,” said Frederick, “and I do think my mother, if she had any regard for me, would try to avoid such scenes. She has been ill all night; and now she’s taken it into her head to go down to Sterborne, to the old place--the last thing in the world I could wish for. If you only knew,” said Frederick in a tone of the deepest injury, “how I hate her father; how I have struggled to keep them apart! And now here is my wife--your daughter-in-law--going down to our own county among all the Eastwoods, to Batty’s house! By Jove, it will break my heart.” Words of unkind meaning were on Nelly’s very lips. “You should not have married Batty’s daughter, if you hate him,” was what she was disposed to say. “Frederick would not have spared me had I done anything of the kind,” she added to herself. She was guilty in intention of this unkind utterance; but in act she was innocent; she bit her lips, and kept it in. Mrs. Eastwood was a great deal more sympathetic. “But if you were to speak to her, Frederick--if you were to say you did not like it?” she suggested anxiously. “Speak! say! much she would care,” cried Frederick. “It just shows how little you know Amanda. That confounded heart disease of hers--if she has a heart disease--makes her believe that she is free to insult everybody. She must not be crossed herself; but there is nothing she likes so much as to cross others. No, I shall have to give in. I shall have to take her there, though I hate the whole concern. I do not think there ever was a more miserable wretch than I am on the face of the earth,” cried Frederick, flinging himself wearily into a chair.