Then he wrote to Eugenia the letter which chilled her with its apparent indifference, feeling himself the while a rather badly-used person and very much inclined to quarrel with Gertrude. "Faugh!" he exclaimed, as he glanced again over Mrs Eyrecourt's letter. "`Poor darling Addie!' If anything could be wanting to make me more in earnest about Eugenia--supposing, that is to say, that there were any possibility of drawing back--it would be the sight of that fat girl, with her silly giggle and doll's face." So Sydney Laurence's wedding-day came and went. It was spent by Beauchamp Chancellor amidst the afflicted family at Halswood; poor Addie, who had truly loved her father, treating him to tears instead of giggles, her widowed mother to lamentations over her desolate state--"these two enormous properties and no male relation to relieve her of the burden of their management," and embarrassingly broad hints of her wishes "that Addie were married to some one she could look upon as a son, some one her dear father would have approved of," till Beauchamp found himself devoutly wishing he had made any excuse under heaven or earth to have avoided this painful visit to his relatives. For he was really sorry for them all; for poor Roger, whom he now saw for the first time--about whose delicate health there could be no doubt, and whose heart seemed broken by this great sorrow--perhaps most of all, and would have been glad to have cheered them. "They are all so fond of you, Beauchamp," said Mrs Eyrecourt, when they were alone together, the evening after the funeral--Captain Chancellor was to leave the next morning--"they seem to look to you so naturally. It is really very gratifying to find that Herbert had made you Roger's guardian. He is terribly delicate, poor boy!" "He _is_ delicate, no doubt," said Beauchamp, rather shortly, "but these delicate boys sometimes turn out perfectly strong men."