We all hoped that Mr. Bowser would find he liked Aunt Gerty well enough to wish to relieve us of her, but we evidently wished it so strongly that he did not see his way to obliging us. These things get into the air somehow, and put people off. Of course Aunt Gerty herself wished it more than anybody, and she was feeling considerably annoyed as she completed the arrangements for a rather seedy sort of autumn tour, which she would not have had to do if she could have pulled it off with the brewer. She wreaked her vexation on us, us and Mother, who was very patient, knowing what poor Aunt Gerty was feeling. But Ariadne, who was feeling very much the same way, and had to suffer in silence, resented it, and when Aunt Gerty hustled her, hustled back in spite of her broken heart. George left for Scotland. He _says_ he is going to shoot with the Scillys. I don't know why, but I have a fancy he has gone to Ben Rhydding, all alone, to cure his gout. It didn't matter. It was settled that we were to go to stay with Christina in Northumberland. Ariadne didn't like going straight on from Whitby, because she would have preferred to get her country outfit in London; but of course the difference on fares made that impossible. It is one of the curious things about Finance, that George should make so much money, and we should still have to think of a beggarly three hundred miles or so at a penny a mile. That is what it costs third-class, as of course we go. The all-the-year-round conservatory at Cinque Cento House costs George three hundred a year alone to keep up, and the Hall of Arms (as it is written up over the door) at the back of the house must be done up every few months. It is all white (five coats!) to set off George's black velvet fencing costume and his neat legs. George has _so_ much taste. He simply lives at Christie's. He cannot help buying cabinets and chairs at a few hundred pounds apiece. He says they are realizable property. Ariadne and I would like to realize them.