"I want to put you into the way of managing that great house, Clary," said my lady, brimming over with good-nature and officiousness. "As to leaving the housekeeping in Miss Granger's hands, that's not to be dreamt of. It might do very well for the first six months--just to let her down gently, as it were--but from henceforth you must hold the reins yourself, Clary, and I'll teach you how to drive." "But, dear Lady Laura, I don't want the trouble and responsibility of housekeeping. I would much rather leave all that in Sophy's hands," protested Clarissa. "You have no idea how clever she is. And I have my own rooms, and my painting." "Yes," exclaimed Lady Laura, "and you will mope yourself to death in your own rooms, with your painting, whenever you have no company in the house. You are not going to become a cipher, surely, Clarissa! What with Miss Granger's schools, and Miss Granger's clothing-club, and Miss Granger's premiums and prizes for this, that, and the other, you stand a fair chance of sinking into the veriest nobody, or you would, if it were not for your pretty face. And then you really must have employment for your mind, Clary. Look at me; see the work I get through." "But you are a wonder, dear Lady Laura, and I have neither your energy nor your industry." Laura Armstrong would not admit this, and held to the idea of putting Clarissa in the right away. "Wait till I come to you in the autumn," she said. And in that depression of spirit which had grown upon her of late, Mrs. Granger found it a hard thing to say that she should be rejoiced when that time came. She wanted to get back to Arden Court, and was proud to think of herself as the mistress of the place she loved so dearly; but it seemed to her that an existence weighed down at once by the wisdom of Sophia Granger and the exuberant gaiety of Lady Laura would be barely endurable. She sighed for Arden Court as she remembered it in her childhood--the dreamy quiet of the dull old house, brightened only by her brother's presence; the perfect freedom of her own life, so different from the life whose every hour was subject to the claims of others. She had changed very much since that visit to Hale Castle. Then all the pleasures of life were new to her--to-day they seemed all alike flat, stale, and unprofitable. She had been surfeited with splendours and pleasures since her marriage. The wealth which Daniel Granger so freely lavished upon her had rendered these things common all at once. She looked back and wondered whether she had really ever longed for a new dress, and been gladdened by the possession of a five-pound note. * * * * * CHAPTER XXIX. "IF I SHOULD MEET THEE--"