No one could have been sweeter than the young widow was to her visitors during the hours she spent with them, listening with inexhaustible patience to Jessica Grenville’s graphic account of the measles as lately “taken” by her whole brood, with all the after consequences of the malady, and the amount of cod-liver oil and quinine consumed by each patient; pretending to be interested in Ruth Morningside’s perpetual disquisitions upon smart people and smart people’s frocks; and in every way performing her duty as a hostess. And yet George Grenville was not altogether satisfied. “I’ll tell you what it is, Jess,” he said to his wife one night, in the luxurious privacy of the good old-fashioned bedroom, seated on the capacious sofa in front of the monumental four-poster, with elaborately-turned columns, richly-moulded cornice, and heavy damask curtains; the kind of bedstead for which our ancestors gave fifty guineas, and for which no modern auctioneer can obtain a bid of fifty shillings; “I’ll tell you what it is, Jess,” repeated Mr. Grenville, frowning at the fire, “either your brother’s widow gives herself confounded airs, or there is something in the wind.” “I’m afraid so, George,” replied his wife, meekly. “You’re afraid of what? Why the deuce can’t you be coherent? Afraid of her airs——” “I’m afraid there is—something in the wind,” faltered the submissive lady. “I suppose it’s the best thing that could happen to her, poor girl, for a nursery will be an occupation for her mind, and prevent her brooding on her loss; but this place would have been very nice for Tom all the same.” “I should think it would indeed, and he ought not to be swindled out of it,” said Mr. Grenville, with a disgusted air. “I—I am surprised at your sister-in-law! I have always considered that there is a kind of indelicacy in a posthumous child. It may be a prejudice on my part, but I have always felt a sort of revulsion when I have heard of such creatures,” and Mr. Grenville curled his lordly aquiline nose, and made a wry face at the jovial fire, blazing hospitably, heaped high with coals and wood, and roaring up towards the frosty sky. CHAPTER XIV. “Then through my brain the thought did pass, Even as a flash of lightning there, That there was something in her air, Which would not doom me to despair; And on the thought my words broke forth.”