But though his wife had been no companion, the illusion had never
died away, he had always loved her devotedly, and her loss had
shattered all his present rest and comfort; as entirely as the death
of his son had taken from him hope and companionship.

What a home it must have been, with Lucy reigning over it in her pert
self-sufficiency, Gilbert and Sophy running riot and squabbling, and
Maria Meadows coming in on them with her well-meant worries and
persecutions!

When taken away from the scene of his troubles, his spirits revived;
afraid to encounter his own household alone, he had thought Albinia
the cure for everything. But at home, habit and association had
proved too strong for her presence--the grief, which he had tried to
leave behind, had waited ready to meet him on the threshold, and the
very sense that it was a melancholy welcome added to his depression,
and made him less able to exert himself. The old sorrows haunted the
walls of the house, and above all the study, and tarried not in
seizing on their unresisting victim. Melancholy was in his nature,
his indolence gave it force, and his habits were almost ineffaceable,
and they were habits of quiet selfishness, formed by a resolute,
though inert will, and fostered by an adoring wife. A youth spent in
India had not given him ideas of responsibilities beyond his own
family, and his principles, though sound, had not expanded the views
of duty with which he had started in life.

It was a positive pleasure to Albinia to discover that there had been
an inefficient clergyman at Bayford before Mr. Dusautoy, and to know
that during half the time that the present vicar had held the living,
Mr. Kendal had been absent, so that his influence had had no time to