He went away next day, taking the train to Glasgow, not without sundry expressions of contempt for the arrangement of the Scotch trains, and the construction of the railways. “We do things better in India,” he said. He was very compunctious about going away, very sorry to leave her, very anxious that she should have everything that was possible to amuse her while he was gone; and exceedingly proud, yet distressed, that she should insist upon coming to the railway with him. It was such an early start for her, it would tire her, it was too much trouble, he said, with a beaming countenance. But when the train started, and Mr. Rowland was alone, he became suddenly very grave. He had not consented to her wish to have the children to meet them in London, because of the fancies that had seized him. If he could only have gone on paying largely for the children, knowing nothing but that they were happy and well, he would on the whole have been very thankful to make such an arrangement. But not only would it have been impossible to do so, but his wife would not have permitted it. She it was who talked of duty in respect to them, who planned everything that would have to be done. For his part, he would have been quite content to let well alone. But how often it happens that you cannot do that, but are compelled to break up rational arrangements and make fictitious ones, visibly altering everything for the worse. Rowland in his prophetic soul felt that this was what he was about to do. He was going to take his children out of the sphere they belonged to, to transport them to another with which they had nothing to do. And his mind altogether was full of compunctions. He had not after all shown their photographs or their letters to his wife. It would be less dreadful, he thought, that they should burst upon her in their native vulgarity and commonness all at once, than that she should be able to divine what like they were, and look forward to the meeting with horror. Naturally he exaggerated the horror Evelyn would be likely to feel, as he depreciated her acuteness and power of divining the motive which made him so certain that he could not find the photographs. Evelyn knew the situation, indeed, almost as well, perhaps in some ways better, than he did. She divined what was to be expected from the two young people brought up upon a very liberal allowance by the aunt whose husband had been a working engineer in the foundry. She was sincerely sorry for them, as well as a little for herself, wondering how they would meet her, feeling it almost impossible that there should not be a little grudge and jealousy, a determination to make a stand against her, and to feel themselves injured and supplanted. She followed her husband in her mind with a little anxiety, hoping that he would not show himself too enlightened as to their deficiencies. And then there would be their aunt to reckon with, the mother’s sister, the second mother. How would she bear it if the young