He was still busy with 'Sweet Bells Jangled,' for he had now decided to make his _coup_ with that, but in other respects he was unproductive. He had begun several little things in pursuance of his engagements, but somehow he did not get on with them, and had to lay them aside until the intellectual thaw he expected. Pecuniarily his position was much improved; his uncle had kept his word, and put an allowance at his disposal which made him tolerably easy about his future. He removed to more fashionable quarters in South Audley Street, and led the easy existence there he had long coveted. Still Mr. Lightowler was an unpleasantly constant bluebottle in his ointment. He came up regularly from Chigbourne to inspect him, generally with literary advice and the latest scandal about his detested neighbour, which he thought might be 'worked up into something.' He had discovered the Row as an afternoon lounge where his nephew ought to show himself 'among the swells,' and he insisted, in spite of all Mark's attempts at evasion, in walking him about there. Mark was not perhaps exactly ashamed of the man whose favours he was accepting, at least he did not own as much even to himself, but there were times when, as he met the surprised glances of people he knew slightly, he could have wished that his loud-voiced and unpresentable relative had not got quite such a tight hold of his arm. At a hint from Trixie he had tendered the olive-branch to his family, which they accepted rather as if it had been something he had asked them to hold for him, and without the slightest approach to anything like a scene. Trixie had, of course, been in communication with him from the first, and kept her satisfaction to herself; Mr. Ashburn was too timid, and his wife too majestic, to betray emotion, while the other two were slightly disappointed. The virtuous members of a family are not always best pleased to see the prodigal at any time, and it is particularly disconcerting to find that the supposed outcast has been living on veal instead of husks during his absence, and associating rather with lions than swine. Mark was not offended at his reception, however, he felt himself independent now; but his easy temper made him anxious to be at peace with them, and if they were not exactly effusive, they made no further pretence of disapproval, and the reconciliation was perfectly genuine as far as it went. 'I am going to see you to the gate, Mark,' Trixie announced, as he rose to go. It was not a long or a perilous journey, but she had an object in accompanying him down the little flagged path. 'I've got something to tell you,' she said, as they stood by the iron gate in the hot August night. 'I wish I knew how to begin.... Mark--how would you like a--a new brother, because I'm going to give you one?' 'Thanks very much, Trixie,' said Mark, 'but I think I can get along without another of them.' 'Ah, but Jack would be a _nice_ one,' said Trixie.