Philippa took her husband to dine in Great Cumberland Place that night; and there, he with Mr. Percival, she with the lady, obtained the terms of a settlement. Sanchia was to be allowed a hundred a year--for the present. (Mr. Percival intended privately to make it two.) Everything was to be assumed in her favour; but she was not to be asked to meet company. Neither Mrs. Percival nor Philippa could be brought to that, and Mr. Percival, so far as he was concerned, had no desire for any sort of company but hers. He was one of those men made rosy-gilled for happiness. Good fellowship, the domestic affections--if they were not there, they must appear to be. His friends of the city were always on his lips--Old Tom Peters--Old Jack Summers--Old Bob--Old Dick. Good fellows every one. All the pet names in the family had been his. To him belonged Pippa and Sancie, Melot and Vicky. “My girls,” or “My rascals,” he used to call them to Tom Peters or Jack Summers, and bring them home jerky little tin pedestrians from the city, or emus pulling little carts; or (later on) bowls of goldfish or violet nosegays from Covent Garden. If he had a nearer passion, it was to stand well with all the world. That's two passions, however, to his score; and the struggle between them, in Sanchia's case, had taken him as near tragedy as the easy man could go. Heaven be praised, the good times were come again. Now he was all for the return of the prodigal, without conditions--“and no questions asked,” as he put it. But in this he could not get his dear desire. Philippa's sense of justice was inflamed, as well as her moral sense. What! you eat a cake, and then, instead of sitting down to your plain bread and butter--away you flounce, and get ready to eat another cake! That's dead against the proverb, that's monstrous, that's offensive. “Mamma, mamma,” Philippa had protested, “you can never have her back to flourish her sin in all our faces.” “Thank you, Philippa, for reminding me, however gratuitously, of my duties to society,” had been Mrs. Percival's acknowledgment. She liked sin as little as Philippa, but she liked being lectured a great deal less. Poor Mr. Percival had pulled his whiskers throughout the debate, and now sighed as he bit them. His girl was to be denied him--but he could give her two hundred a year, and go to see her often. That was comfort. And then the meeting took place. First with Mamma, who had never liked her, and was now a little afraid of what she might do. For Philippa had made it quite plain that if Sanchia was not humoured, she would have nothing to say to Ingram. “She's exhausted her criminal passion--that's what it comes to,” was Philippa's judgment. “Now she will have to be cajoled.” So Mrs. Percival was cowed into civility.