Then, when there had been the usual amount of mirth, mischief, and mishap, and the party had dispersed, some to sketch, some to scramble, some to botanize, the “Duck and Drake to spoon,”--as said the boys, Mary Ogilvie found a turfy nook where she could hold council with Mrs. Acton about their poor little friend, for whose welfare she was seriously uneasy. But Clara did not sympathise as much as she expected, having been much galled by Mrs. Robert Brownlow’s supercilious manner, and thinking the attempt to conciliate her both unworthy and useless. “Of course I do not mean that poor Carey should truckle to her,” said Mary, rather nettled at the implication; “but I don’t think these irregular hours, and all this roaming about the country at all times, can be well in themselves for her or the children.” “My dear Mary, did you never take a party of children into the country in the spring for the first time? If not, you never saw the prettiest and most innocent of intoxications. I had once to take the little Pyrtons to their place in the country one April and May, months that they had always spent in London; and I assure you they were perfectly mad, only with the air, the sight of the hawthorns, and all the smells. I was obliged to be content with what they could do, not what ought to be done, of lessons. There was no sitting still on a fine morning. I was as bad myself; the blood seemed to dance in one’s veins, and a room to be a prison.” “This is not spring,” said Mary. “No, but she began in spring, and habits were formed.” “No doubt, but they cannot be good. They keep up flightiness and excitability.” “Oh, that’s grief, poor dear!” “We bain’t carousing, we be dissembling grief, as the farmer told the clergyman who objected to merry-making after a funeral,” said Mary, rather severely. Then she added, seeing Clara looked annoyed, “You think me hard on poor dear Carey, but indeed I am not doubting her affection or her grief.” “Remember, a woman with children cannot give herself entirely up to sorrow without doing them harm.” “Poor Carey, I am sure I do not want to see her given up to sorrow, only to have her a little more moderate, and perhaps select--so as not to do herself harm with her relations--who after all must be more important to her than any outsiders.” The artist’s wife could not but see things a little differently from the schoolmaster’s sister, who moreover knew nothing of Carey’s former life; and Clara made answer-- “Sending her down to these people was the greatest error of dear good Dr. Brownlow’s life.” “I am not sure of that. Blood is thicker than water.” “But between sisters-in-law it is apt to be only ill-blood, and very turbid.” “For shame, Clara.”