

There was a temporary lull at Fraylingay after that last battle, during which Mrs. Frayling wrote to her daughter freely and frequently. She described the fight she had had for her rights, and concluded: "Now the whole difficulty has blown over, and I have no more opposition to contend against"—to which Evadne had replied in a few words judiciously, adding:

  "Before the curing of a strong disease,
  Even in the instant of repair and health,
  The fit is strongest; evils that take leave,
  On their departure most of all show evil."
CHAPTER XIX.

It came to be pretty generally known that all had not gone well with the Colquhouns immediately after their marriage. Something of the story had of necessity leaked out through the servants; but, as the Fraylings had the precaution, common to their class, to keep their private troubles to themselves, nobody knew precisely what the difficulty had been, and their intimate friends, whom delicacy debarred from making inquiries, least of all. Lady Adeline just mentioned the matter to Mrs. Orton Beg, and asked, "Is it a difficulty that may be discussed?"

"No, better not, I think," the latter answered, and of course the subject dropped.

But poor Lady Adeline was too much occupied with domestic anxieties of her own at that time to feel more than a passing gleam of sympathetic interest in other people's. As Lord Dawne had hinted to Mrs. Orton Beg, it was now a question of how best to educate the twins. Their parents had made what they considered suitable arrangements for their instruction; but the children, unfortunately, were not satisfied with these. They had had a governess in common while they were still quite small; but Mr. Hamilton-Wells had old-fashioned ideas about the superior education of boys, and consequently, when the children had outgrown their nursery governess, he decided that Angelica should have another, more advanced; and had at the same time engaged a tutor for Diavolo, sending him to school being out of the question because of the fear of further trouble from the artery he had severed. When this arrangement became known, the children were seen to put their heads together.

"Do we like having different teachers?" Diavolo inquired tentatively.

"No, we don't," said Angelica.

Lady Adeline had tried to prepare the governess, but the latter brought no experience of anything like Angelica to help her to understand that young lady, and so the warning went for nothing. "A little affection goes a long way with a child
