All this was very exciting and disturbing, and it set the thoughts of Gertrude and Mary in that direction from which there is no turning back. Gertrude, then Mary, made a long stay in Plymouth, and they returned with new costumes, new accents, new thoughts, and all their talk was of the superiority of town-life over the country. They spent a great deal of money, and the problem of income and expenditure occupied their father's mind to the exclusion of everything else. In Plymouth Gertrude and Mary had met the most delightful young man, a friend of Frederic's, named Herbert Fry. On their entreaty he was invited to stay for a holiday. He came and saw and was conquered--by Minna. He was caught kissing her in the shrubbery, his stay came to an end, and the name given him by the nurse--"a reg'lar Apollyon, my dear"--was found to be appropriate. Minna was furious, and in a gust of spite wrote a most offensive letter to Willie Folyat in Bombay. She told her mother what she had done and robbed her of her most cherished dream. She was found to be conducting a clandestine correspondence with "Apollyon," and Martha let loose the thought which for some time had been lurking at the back of her head, namely, that they must make a change and, if possible, seek life in some city. She skirmished about with it, never suspecting that much the same thought might be in her husband's mind also, and she led him to it by easy stages. Really the girls were getting beyond her; they had said things to her which she would never have dared to say to her aunt when _she_ was a girl; and the country certainly was dull for young people, and they had the children to think of, and, of course, parents must make some sacrifices.