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addition to being her Trustee, was joined with her in the guardianship of her children. She could neither understand why her poor husband had made such a choice, nor cease to bewail it. No one could have been more unacceptable to her! He was a man of no sensibility, and impatient temper, and had so little affection for his cousin’s children that it was a question whether he knew them apart. His decrees were imperious, and issued without the smallest regard for her wishes; himself a man of huge fortune, he had no comprehension of the difficulties confronting those left to maintain the elegances of life upon a mere pittance. He always thought she should have been able to manage better! It was he who had insisted on Gerard’s being sent to school, although her own dear Dr Ryde had pronounced the poor little fellow’s constitution to be too delicate for the rigours of Eton. She could not believe that he would have cared if Gerard had died of it. Miraculously, Gerard had survived; and Charlie, of course, had always been very stout, so that she had no fears for him; but now Rotherham was saying that it was time poor little Tom was sent to join his brother. Do as she would, she could not make him understand the shocking expense of having two sons at Eton. There was no end to the calls on her purse: she was sure the fees were the least part of the whole. As for the girls, beyond saying that he saw no reason why Susan should be presented at a Drawing-room, and annihilating Margaret by telling her that when she could address him without prefixing her remarks with a giggle he might attend to her, he never noticed them. Very likely he had forgotten that little Lizzie even existed: he could certainly never remember her name.
    The Carlow ladies listened, and sympathized, and agreed that it was a hard case, Fanny rather more sincerely than Serena. Serena could perceive that there might be something to be said in Rotherham’s defence. He made too little allowance, she believed, for the difficulties besetting a woman left with six children on her hands; but she, like him, was intolerant of folly, and Mrs Monksleigh was so very foolish! But she thought him less than kind to Gerard, of whom he was contemptuous; and quite indifferent to the younger members of the family. This opinion was shared by Lady Silchester, who excused it, however, by saying that gentlemen always disliked to be plagued by children, and that no one could expect such a thorough sportsman as Rotherham to take to Gerard, who had no taste for sport, a very bad seat, and far too little spirit. But even she could not pretend that her brother had shown the smallest sign of approval when the more robust Charlie, upon the occasion of his only visit to Delford, had given evidence of such spirited behaviour as led him into the performance of every kind of prank, from trying to bestride his guardian’s more unmanageable horses to falling off the stable-roof, and breaking his collar-bone. All he had said was that Charlie might think himself fortunate that he had broken his collar-bone, and that he would be damned if ever he saddled himself with the whelp again.
    ‘So Augusta quite mistakes the matter when she says he would like poor Gerard better if he were bolder, and didn’t stand so much in awe of him,’ complained Mrs Monksleigh. ‘I’m sure no boy could be bolder than Charlie, for he is for ever in a scrape, and he never minds a word anyone says to him, but that doesn’t please Rotherham either! I assure you, Lady Serena, I live in dread of his making Rotherham angry while we are at Claycross, for I know he wouldn’t hesitate to use the poor boy with dreadful harshness, which I have told him I utterly forbid. Indeed, I thought all was lost yesterday, when that most disagreeable keeper made such a commotion about Charlie’s putting a charge of shot into his leg. Just as though it had not been an accident! Of course, it was wrong of Charlie to take the gun without