Mrs. Harwood had never lived in that house, which had been let from the period of her father-in-law’s death, and was not known much in the neighborhood. She had been nearly fifteen years in St. John’s Wood, where she had soon become known as a liberal supporter of the parish charities and an acquisition to the neighborhood in every sense of the word; and where nobody inquired into the family history of an agreeable widow, very well off, and with nice children. Now the description of the household was changed--nice young people with an agreeable mother was how they now presented themselves to the knowledge of the world; and any little episodes that had happened in Liverpool or in the wilds of North Wales were totally unknown. Meredith, however, was an exception to this ignorance. He was a Welshman. He had known them all his life, and he knew everything about them. It had been at first unpleasant to Mrs. Harwood to acknowledge his claims, for she preferred to ignore altogether their previous circumstances. But, seeing that it was impossible to shake him off, she had taken the part of making the best of him and speaking freely to him of relations and connections like a woman who had nothing to conceal. Meredith had friends who were well off, if he was not, for the present, very well off himself; and when it became apparent that there was a mutual inclination between him and Gussy, Mrs. Harwood was glad of it, partly because his father had been one of the sufferers by her husband’s failure, and might thus be partially recouped for his losses, and partly because Meredith’s mouth would thus be effectually stopped, and no revelations need be apprehended from him--though, as she sensibly remarked, “What does any scandal matter after fifteen years?” Meredith’s motives were perhaps more difficult to read. They had indeed been easy enough at first, for he had really liked Gussy, and had felt her to be as good a match as he could aspire to. Latterly, however, several circumstances had struck him as strange in the house with which he was so familiar. They had been scarcely of note enough to call for any consideration singly; but put together they had awakened a suspiciousness not unnatural in a mind trained to the complexities of the law. Had he been ignorant of the history of the Harwoods; had he been altogether without the tradition of animosity which lingers in the mind of a man who has a hereditary injury in his thoughts, it is probable he would not have remarked these little incidents. The chief of them was Vicars, whose countenance seemed one of evil omen to the young man. He had come by degrees to the belief that there was something in the house to be found out.