"Perhaps there was some mistake," says Monica, timidly, plucking a pale blossom and pretending to admire it. "No, no. We believe he contracted an affection for some other girl, and for her sake jilted your mother. If so, retribution fit and proper followed on his perfidy, because he brought no wife later on to grace his home. Doubtless he was betrayed in his turn. That was only just." "There seems to be reason in that conjecture," says Miss Penelope, "because he went abroad almost immediately. I saw him shortly before he left the country, and he was then quite a broken-down man. He must have taken his _own_ misfortune greatly to heart." "Served him right!" says Miss Priscilla, uncompromisingly. "He deserved no greater luck. Your mother suffered so much at his hands that she almost lost her health. I don't believe she ever got over it." "Oh, yes, she did," says Terry, suddenly; "she got over it uncommonly well. We didn't know who Mr. Desmond was then, of course; but I know she used to make quite a joke of him." "A joke!" says Miss Priscilla, in an awful tone. "Yes, regular fun, you know," goes on Terence, undaunted. "One day she was telling father some old story about Mr. Desmond, a 'good thing' _she_ called it, and she was laughing heartily; but he wasn't, and when she had finished, I remember, he said something to her about want of 'delicacy of feeling,' or something like that." "I was there," says Kit, in her high treble. "He said, too, she ought to be ashamed of herself." "Oh, that was nothing," says Mr. Beresford, airily. "Father and mother never agreed for a moment; they were always squabbling from the time they got up till they went to bed again." The Misses Blake have turned quite pale. "Terence how can you speak so of your sainted mother?" says Miss Penelope. "I'm sure, from her letters to us, she was a most _devoted_ mother and wife, and, indeed, sacrificed her every wish and pleasure to yours." "I never knew it cost her so much to _keep away_ from us," says Terence. "If she was dying for our society, she must indeed have sacrificed herself, because she made it the business of her life to avoid us from morn to dewy eve." "Doubtless she had her duties," says Miss Penelope, in a voice of suppressed fear. What is she going to hear next? what are these dreadful children going to say? "Perhaps she had," said Terence. "If so, they didn't agree with her, as she was always in a bad temper. She used to give it to papa right and left, until he didn't dare to call his soul his own. When I marry, I shall take very good care my wife doesn't lead me the life my mother led my father." "_Your_ wife! who'd marry _you_?" says Kit, scornfully, which interlude gives the discussion a rest for a little time. But soon they return to the charge. "Your mother when here had an angelic temper," says Miss Penelope. Miss Priscilla all this time seems incapable of speech.