Lady Pell’s sole reply was a little dubious cough. Liberal-minded though she was in many ways—indeed, she prided herself on being so—she was not, as a rule, prepossessed by foreigners. It was an insular prejudice, but one, unfortunately, which she shared in common with numbers of worthy people, who take credit to themselves for their narrow-mindedness, and are proud of boasting that they are “English to the backbone.” “Her mother was an Englishwoman, as I think I have mentioned to you before to-day,” remarked Sir Gilbert with a little flash of the eye. “Consequently——” “Mrs. Clare is only half a foreigner. It is a fact I had forgotten. Yes, that certainly makes a difference, and I at once admit that I am a little curious to meet her. Being the sort of woman you have described to me—still, for all her forty years, or whatever their number may be, so splendidly handsome—you have not, I presume, overlooked the possibility of her one day marrying again.” The Baronet threw a startled glance at his cousin. “No,” he exclaimed, “such an idea never entered my mind.” “I can well believe it,” rejoined Lady Pell with a little pitying smile. “You men!—you men! But now that I have made you a present of the idea, you cannot fail to perceive the extreme feasibility of it.” “Um-um. But if Mrs. Clare had any thought or intention of marrying again, why need she have waited all these years? Like the rest of us, Louisa, she is not growing younger.” “Possibly she has met no one whom she cared to marry. But, be that as it may, it must at once strike you that the Mrs. Clare of to-day—the daughter-in-law of Sir Gilbert Clare and the mother of the prospective heir of Withington Chase—is a very different personage in the matrimonial market from the Mrs. Clare of six months ago. If she prove anything like the kind of woman I take her to be, you may rely upon it that she will not long be content to remain buried in a little poky neighbourhood such as this. She will want—and very naturally—to see something of the world, and to assume that position in society to which by your own act she has become entitled.” Then, perceiving that her words had had more effect than she had intended, she hastened to add: “But these are merely some of my views, and must not be taken for more than they are worth. It may be that I shall find Mrs. Clare a very different kind of person from anything I have imagined her to be.” Sir Gilbert rose stiffly from his chair. “What you have just told me, Louisa, has put me about a little, and I have no wish to deny it. There is reason in what you say—much reason. For, when all is said, why should not Alec’s widow marry again if her inclination tends that way? Only, I hadn’t thought of it—that’s where it is—I hadn’t thought of it.”