governess became a forbidden subject between them; the husband
waited for the wife to set the example of approaching it, and the
wife waited for the husband. The trial of temper produced by this
state of hesitation, and by the secret doubts which it
encouraged, led insensibly to a certain estrangement--which
Linley in particular was morbidly unwilling to acknowledge. If,
when the dinner-hour brought them together, he was silent and
dull in his wife's presence, he attributed it to anxiety on the
subject of his brother--then absent on a critical business errand
in London. If he sometimes left the house the first thing in the
morning, and only returned at night, it was because the
management of the model farm had become one of his duties, in
Randal's absence. Mrs. Linley made no attempt to dispute this
view of the altered circumstances in home-life--but she submitted
with a mind ill at ease. Secretly fearing that Linley was
suffering under Miss Westerfield's absence, she allowed herself
to hope that Kitty's father would see a necessity, in his own
case, for change of scene, and would accompany them to the
seaside.

"Won't you come with us, Herbert?" she suggested, when they had
both agreed on the choice of a place.

His temper was in a state of constant irritation. Without meaning
it he answered her harmless question sharply.

"How can I go away with you, when we are losing by the farm, and
when there is nobody to check the ruinous expenses but myself?"

Mrs. Linley's thoughts naturally turned to Randal's prolonged