Chapter 16 - Page 2

practised in the universities and public schools. Her
children inherited her acuteness and refinement with their father's
robustness and aversion to study. They were precocious and impudent,
had no respect for Cashel, and showed any they had for their mother
principally by running to her when they were in difficulties. She
never punished nor scolded them; but she contrived to make their
misdeeds recoil naturally upon them so inevitably that they soon
acquired a lively moral sense which restrained them much more
effectually than the usual methods of securing order in the nursery.
Cashel treated them kindly for the purpose of conciliating them; and
when Lydia spoke of them to him in private, he seldom said more than
that the imps were too sharp for him, or that he was blest if he
didn't believe that they were born older than their father. Lydia
often thonght so too; but the care of this troublesome family had
one advantage for her. It left her little time to think about
herself, or about the fact that when the illusion of her love passed
away Cashel fell in her estimation. But the children were a success;
and she soon came to regard him as one of them. When she had leisure
to consider the matter at all, which seldom occurred, it seemed to
her that, on the whole, she had chosen wisely.

Alice Goff, when she heard of Lydia's projected marriage, saw that
she must return to Wiltstoken, and forget her brief social splendor
as soon as possible. She therefore thanked Miss Carew for her
bounty, and begged to relinquish her post of companion. Lydia
assented, but managed to delay this sacrifice to a sense of duty and
necessity until a day early in winter, when Lucian gave way to a
hankering after domestic joys that possessed him, and allowed his
cousin to persuade him to offer his hand to Alice. She indignantly
refused--not that she had any reason to complain of him, but because
the prospect of returning to Wiltstoken made her feel ill used, and
she could not help revenging her soreness upon the first person whom
she could find a pretext for attacking. He, lukewarm before, now
became eager, and she was induced to relent without much difficulty.
Lucian was supposed to have made a brilliant match; and, as it
proved, he made a fortunate one. She kept his house, entertained his
guests, and took charge of his social connections so ably that in
course of time her invitations came to be coveted by people who were
desirous of moving in good society. She was even better looking as a
matron than she had been as a girl; and her authority in matters of
etiquette inspired nervous novices with all the terrors she had
herself felt when she first visited Wiltstoken Castle. She invited
her brother-in-law and his wife to dinner twice