But her wrath passed, or remained only as a graceful fretfulness. She made the house comfortable, and abandoned the farm to Mr. Wilbraham. With a good deal of care she selected a small circle of acquaintances, and had them to stop in the summer months. In the winter she would go to town and frequent the salons of the literary. As her lameness increased she moved about less, and at the time of her nephew’s visit seldom left the place that had been forced upon her as a home. Just now she was busy. A prominent politician had quoted her husband. The young generation asked, “Who is this Mr. Failing?” and the publishers wrote, “Now is the time.” She was collecting some essays and penning an introductory memoir. Rickie admired his aunt, but did not care for her. She reminded him too much of his father. She had the same affliction, the same heartlessness, the same habit of taking life with a laugh—as if life is a pill! He also felt that she had neglected him. He would not have asked much: as for “prospects,” they never entered his head, but she was his only near relative, and a little kindness and hospitality during the lonely years would have made incalculable difference. Now that he was happier and could bring her Agnes, she had asked him to stop at once. The sun as it rose next morning spoke to him of a new life. He too had a purpose and a value in the world at last. Leaning out of the window, he gazed at the earth washed clean and heard through the pure air the distant noises of the farm. But that day nothing was to remain divine but the weather. His aunt, for reasons of her own, decreed that he should go for a ride with the Wonham boy. They were to look at Old Sarum, proceed thence to Salisbury, lunch there, see the sights, call on a certain canon for tea, and return to Cadover in the evening. The arrangement suited no one. He did not want to ride, but to be with Agnes; nor did Agnes want to be parted from him, nor Stephen to go with him. But the clearer the wishes of her guests became, the more determined was Mrs. Failing to disregard them. She smoothed away every difficulty, she converted every objection into a reason, and she ordered the horses for half-past nine. “It is a bore,” he grumbled as he sat in their little private sitting-room, breaking his finger-nails upon the coachman’s gaiters. “I can’t ride. I shall fall off. We should have been so happy here. It’s just like Aunt Emily. Can’t you imagine her saying afterwards, ‘Lovers are absurd. I made a point of keeping them apart,’ and then everybody laughing.” With a pretty foretaste of the future, Agnes knelt before him and did the gaiters up. “Who is this Mr. Wonham, by the bye?” “I don’t know. Some connection of Mr. Failing’s, I think.” “Does he live here?” “He used to be at school or something. He seems to have grown into a tiresome person.” “I suppose that Mrs. Failing has adopted him.”