“You’ll be so good, Master Arthur,” he had once remarked, and that in his most decided manner, to his thoughtless son-in-law, “as not to say anything in my presence about your mother which you wouldn’t say before her face. I don’t pretend to much liking for milady, nor do I suppose there’s much love lost between us. She thinks me an old snob (isn’t that your new word for fogeyism?) and I--well, it don’t much matter what _I_ think. I’m an old fellow, and an old-fashioned fellow, and in _my_ time--don’t laugh, you rogue--young men and women honoured their fathers and mothers in a way they don’t seem to do nowadays. You may say that the parents don’t always deserve to be respected; but that’s neither here nor there, and God A’mighty said nothing about that,” added the old man reverently, “when He gave the two tables of the law to Moses. One of these days, my boy,” and he laid his hand kindly upon Arthur’s shoulder, “you’ll be glad if your own sons have been brought up in my way of thinking. In the mean time, remember that it’s a bargain between us that you are to be mum in my presence about my Lady Mill.” But we must return to Mrs. Arthur Vavasour, and to her anything but joyful anticipations as regarded the expected visit of her uncongenial mother-in-law. “O Arthur, what shall I do? I could bear anything better than a formal call from Lady Millicent. What am I to say to her? She has such a dreadfully cold way of looking into and at one. She shows so plainly that she despises papa and me. I don’t mind it so much for myself, for of course I know that you might have married anybody; but it does vex me when she behaves so about poor papa. I know he feels it, though he says nothing. Papa is so odd, dear old man, about some things; he is so chivalrous, so innately courtly, like the old knights. Don’t laugh, Arthur; I know he does not look much like them, with his round face and dear bald head; but I think, I do indeed, that they, when they fought for their ladies, must have felt something like my poor father. He places woman so high. I can remember how courteous and tender--though I daresay Lady Millicent thinks him vulgar--he always was to poor mamma. He has a horror of fast girls; they are the only creatures in the shape of women that I ever hear him severe upon; but he would love Rhoda dearly. O Arthur, how nice it would be if we could see a good deal of her! But of course Lady Millicent would never allow that; she would think her daughter would be contaminated by living with such vulgarians as papa and me.” Arthur during this plaintive speech had been standing with his back to the speaker, tapping impatiently on the plate-glass window-pane, having a view upon the now tolerably crowded park, for it was five o’clock, and Mr. Duberly’s grand town mansion was one of the finest in Hyde-park-gardens. He turned round hastily at the cessation of his wife’s voice, and said a little impatiently: