But Mrs. Fenchurch had her doubts. How the agreeable, genial Blagdon seemed to have altered! He now treated her with marked coolness, rarely addressed her, and when she praised Letty, received her encomiums in gloomy silence. After all, he might prove a most unsatisfactory husband--he looked ill-tempered. Mrs. Blagdon, for her part, had a few words to say to her son before she flitted south. “Hugo, I hope you and Letty will pull well together,” to which he merely grunted a reply. “You must make allowances for her. I think she is trying hard to please you. She is a simple little thing--and so young--not yet full grown--and her mind only half developed.” “Half baked, you mean!” he corrected angrily. “No, no; she has plenty of brains. What she wants, is worldly wisdom; her French is perfect, and her singing and playing astonishing for her age.” “Just school accomplishments!” “The others will come; but Letty really won’t be fit to be mistress of this great place, to look the part, and to hold her own, for a couple of years.” “If ever!” “Now, suppose you were to close Sharsley for a little, and travel, and let her see the world, and mix in society?” “No, thank you,” he rejoined with laboured emphasis. “I’ve had enough of travel with _Letty_. She is all for sights and sunsets, and hideous old pictures and damp churches. She has no fun or go, no what you call _joie de vivre_. As for mixing in society, she is a fish out of water, and without tact or sense. Why you yourself heard the story she related at dinner,--one of Lady Slater’s _worst_--and that without turning a hair!” “It showed the poor child’s innocence,” rejoined his mother, “and the sort of people with whom you allowed her to associate.” “Any way--it will be talked of for the next ten years! and I’ll tell you what, mum,” he added, nodding his head and looking down at her with his hard, sullen eyes. “I find I’ve made a most infernal mistake!” “Well, Hugo, remember that I warned you; the wife to have suited you, would have been a smart young widow, who knew her way about, who was clever and ambitious, and could hold her own. I must confess I am sorry for Letty!” “Bah! she’s just a little shivering idiot.” “I expect her aunt drove her into the marriage. Oh, Hugo, what an awful woman; so thrusting, managing, and overbearing. For all her good birth, and being first cousin to the Marquis of Camberwell, she is not a lady.” She had not forgotten their passage-at-arms, and repeated with conviction, “No, she is _not_!”