"You have a letter from Beauchamp, I suppose," said Gertrude. "So have I--a tremendous one, isn't it?" she fluttered half a dozen sheets through her fingers for Eugenia's benefit. "I really can't read it all till after breakfast. It is all about Halswood. I was anxious to know how he finds everything, and so Beauchamp has sent me all the details-- the particulars of the whole, the rents of the great farms, how the entailed _money_ property is invested, and I don't know all what, but all so interesting to me of course, knowing it so well. It isn't exactly _womens'_ business certainly, but then I have had a good deal of business to look after in my time. The womenkind of men of property should be able to help their husbands and sons, you know." She went on speaking as if Eugenia were an ordinary uninterested visitor, either really forgetting, or affecting to do so, that to the woman before her of all women in the world Beauchamp Chancellor's interests must be the closest and dearest. The blood seemed to boil in the young wife's veins, but recent experience had not been lost upon her, and her power of self-control had increased greatly in the last few weeks. So she answered, quietly, "Yes, they certainly should, and so should other people's wives too. It is one of my father's hobbies that women of all classes should be better educated, so that they may be better able to help men, and sometimes to work alone even." "Oh, I wasn't referring to that sort of thing. I hate all that talk about women's rights, and so on: it is very bad taste," exclaimed Gertrude, contemptuously. "I don't know, and don't want to know anything about the women of any class but my own. But of course there is nothing unfeminine in managing one's own business matters when one understands how. I have almost been brought up to it, you see, always having lived on our own land--and I certainly need all I know now, with Quintin's long minority before me and Beauchamp at the head of the Halswood affairs too. He is sure to be always consulting me. That reminds me I must be quick, for I must answer his letter before luncheon, and it will take me a good while." She went on with her breakfast, but happening to move aside the large envelope of her brother's letter, her eye fell on another, which, with a little exclamation, "From Roma, I didn't expect to hear from her to-day," she took up and read. "Roma is coming home to-morrow," she announced to Eugenia, in a minute or two. "A week sooner than she expected." "Is she really? I am so glad!" exclaimed Eugenia, thankful for any interruption to the present uncongenial tete-a-tete with her sister-in-law, doubly thankful that it came in the shape of a person she was already inclined to like. "Why, have you ever seen her? Oh yes, to be sure, she stayed a night at Wareborough and was at your marriage. I forgot you had seen her," said Mrs Eyrecourt.