“Charitable? I should think not! Who with any Christian feeling would be charitable to one who has gained for herself such a name for hardness of heart, while she professes to respect God’s holy law and commandments, as Lady Millicent Vavasour? I am not, I hope, either a humbug or a prig; but I like to see people act up to what they profess, and I should have a better opinion than I have of our neighbour at the Castle if she talked about religion less, and acted up to its dictates more.” “In my opinion,” said Lady Guernsey thoughtfully, “more than half of her pretended love of seclusion and country life, which people have said so much about, arises from selfishness and indolence!” “Bravo!” said his lordship in delight. “I knew it would come! Let a woman alone, if she’s a sensible one, for arriving at the right conclusion. Now, I’ll tell you what it is, Gertrude,” he added more seriously, and placing his wife’s hand within his arm, as they strolled together under the branching chestnuts of the grand old avenue leading to the house; “I’ll tell you exactly what it is. There _may_ be, as you say, no real harm in Lady Millicent; but she is neither tender, nor open, nor womanly. Gad, what should I do, and what would the children do, with such a mother as that? As for the poor things at the Castle up there, I declare it’s a shame to see her muddle away their existence as she does. Those two fine young men--Arthur, particularly, who, between you and me, is a little soft, and who required no end of judgment in his raising--are utterly ruined.” “I hope not, poor things,” said Lady Guernsey, who was given to look, even more than was her lord, at the bright side of every shield, “I hope not; one never can tell how boys will turn out. I’m often really quite uneasy about Ernest; and yet--” “You needn’t trouble yourself, my dear Gertrude, about him. Ernest is one of your quiet, lymphatic sort, but both those young fellows at the Castle are of another kind of constitution; and I’m as certain that Arthur, at least, will come to grief, as I am glad that his poor father didn’t live to see it.” “I often thought that Mr. Vavasour wasn’t pursuing the wisest plan in the world about his boys,” remarked Lady Guernsey pensively. “The Vavasour children never seemed to be allowed to find their own pleasures like other boys and girls. They were very good, I daresay, and were always well-behaved; but I used often to fancy it would have been more natural if they had been naughty sometimes like their neighbours.”