Nor was it only in regard to her child’s religious obsession that the lady suffered. She had flatly refused to let her enter into anything but the coldest relations with “those dreadful people at the House”; and it was with a peculiar shock of dismay that she found that the girl was not literally obeying her. It was not, however, to the Romers themselves that Vennie made her shy overtures, but to a luckless little relative of that family now domiciled with them as companion to Gladys Romer. This young dependent, reputed in the village to be of Italian origin, struck the gentle heart of the last of the Seldoms with indescribable pity. She could not altogether define the impression the girl produced upon her, but it was a singularly oppressive one, and it vexed and troubled her. The situation was wretchedly complicated. It was extremely difficult to get a word with the little companion without encountering Gladys; and any approach to intimacy with “the Romer girl” would have meant an impossible scene with Mrs. Seldom. Nor was it a light undertaking, in such hurried interviews as she did manage to secure, to induce the child to drop her reserve. She would fix her great brown foreign eyes--her name was Lacrima Traffio--on Vennie’s face, and make curious little helpless gestures with her hands when questions were asked her; but speak of herself she would not. It was clear she was absolutely dependent on her cousins. Vennie gathered as much as that, as she once talked with her under the church wall, when Gladys was chatting with the vicar. A reference to her own people had nearly resulted in an outburst of tears. Vennie had had to be content with a broken whisper: “We come from Rapallo--they are all dead.” There was nothing, it appeared, that could be added to this. It was perhaps a little inconsistent in the old lady to be so resolute against her daughter’s overtures to Lacrima, as she herself had no hesitation in making a sort of protégé of another of Mr. Romer’s tribe. This was an eccentric middle-aged bachelor who had drifted into the place soon after the new-comer’s arrival and had established himself in a dilapidated cottage on the outskirts of the Auber woods. Remotely related to Mrs. Romer, he had in some way become dependent on her husband, whose financial advantage over him was not, it seemed, as time went on, exerted in a very considerate manner. Maurice Quincunx, for such was his unusual name, was an illegitimate descendant of one of the most historic houses in the neighborhood, but both his poverty and his opinions caused him to live what was practically the life of a hermit, and made him shrink away, even more nervously than little Vennie Seldom, from any intercourse with his equals. The present possessors of his queer ancient name were now the Lords of Glastonbury, and had probably never so much as heard of Maurice’s existence.