"I am sorry to disappoint you, mamma, but I have left Aunt Charlotte for good and all. When I went to her you know it was only as a makeshift till her companion, Miss Pudsey, whose health had broken down (and I don't wonder at it) was able to resume her duties. Then poor Pudsey is terribly afraid of the sea, and Aunt Charlotte having made up her mind to go in person to America and look after some property she was afraid she was being swindled out of, probably thought that I should be of more use to her during the voyage out and home. Now, however, Pudsey is back in harness, so aunt and I have said good-bye, mutually glad to have seen the last of each other for at least a considerable time to come." "It is a pity, a very great pity, that you were not at more pains to conciliate your aunt; and she with so many thousands to leave behind her." By this time they had packed themselves into one of the station flies and were being jolted homeward. "It is just possible that if Aunt Charlotte had been a poor woman instead of a rich one, I might have been at more pains to please her than I was. But, for my part, I've no inclination to fill the _rôle_ of toady to a cross-grained and abominably selfish old woman, however well-to-do she may be." Then, a moment later, she added: "Not for a thousand a year would I willingly degenerate into a Pudsey." "Still, I cannot help repeating that it is a great pity you could not bring yourself to put up with your aunt's whims and little infirmities of temper, especially knowing, as you do, what a number of mouths there are at home to be fed, and what a little money there is to do it on. But of course it was too much to expect that you would sacrifice any of your ridiculous prejudices, whatever might be the gain to others from your doing so." Fanny did not reply; she was already debating a certain scheme in her mind which would reduce the number of mouths to be fed at home by one. It was not till rather a late hour, and after the younger members of the family circle had retired for the night, that Mrs. Sudlow found an opportunity of being alone with her daughter. The Vicar, with a prevision of what was coming, had shut himself in his study on the plea of having to put the finishing touches to his morrow's sermon. Mrs. Sudlow was not without her misgivings as to the success of the task she proposed to herself. Her preliminary skirmish with Fanny in the afternoon had proved to her of what stuff the girl was made. But the little woman was not deficient in pugnacity, and rather relished a battle-royal now and again, as tending to diversify the monotony of everyday existence. Only she would much rather that her antagonist should have been someone other than her daughter. In the present instance, however, there was no help for it.