He apologized for this afterward to his son, by explaining that he did it as a duty.

"It will serve for six months," he said.

"If I did not go there about once in six months, there would be supposed to be a family quarrel, and that would be bad for the parish." Harry was to remain only a week at Clavering, and the dinner was to take place the evening before he went away.

On that morning he walked all round the park with Florence--as he had before often walked with Julia--and took that occasion of giving her a full history of the Clavering family.

"We none of us like my cousin Hugh," he said.