“I must beg you, Mrs. Grey, if only for our sakes, to be a little more circumspect.  How could you let out before Barker that you ’knew nobody’?”

“It is the truth—­why should I not say it?” was all Christian answered, as she opened the letters, almost the first which had come to her still unfamiliar name.  “They are all invitations.  Oh dear! what shall I do?”

Dr. Grey looked up at the exclamation; he never seemed to hear much of what passed around him except when his wife spoke, and then some slight movement often showed that though, silent, he was not an unobservant man.

“Invitations!” cried Miss Gascoigne; “the very thing I was expecting.  And to the best houses in Avonsbridge, too.  This is the result of your At home.  I feel quite pleased at having so successfully introduced you into good society.”

“Thank you,” said Christian, half amused, half—­well, it is not worth while being annoyed at such a small thing.  She only looked across at her husband to see how he felt on the matter.

“I think,” said the master with a comical twinkling in his eye, “that no society is half so good or so pleasant as our own.”

Christian looked puzzled a minute, but afterward smiled gratefully.

“We may decline it, then?”

“Should you like it best?”

“I should, indeed.”  For, somehow, though she did not shrink from her new life—­that strange, perplexing life for which her sense of duty was making her every day more strong—­she did shrink from the outward shows of it.  To be stared at by cold, sharp, Avonsbridge eyes, or pointed at as “the governess” whom Dr. Grey had married—­worse, perhaps, as Edward Oakley’s daughter, the Edward Oakley whose failings every body knew—­“Yes,” she added, quickly, “I would much rather decline.”

“Decline! when I have taken so much trouble—­bought a new dress expressly for these parties!  They are bridal parties, Mrs. Grey, given for you, meant to welcome you into Society.  Society always does it, except when the marriage is one to be ashamed of?”

Christian started; the hot flush which now twenty times a day was beginning to burn in her once pale cheek, burnt there now; but she restrained herself, for the children sat there—­Letitia, preternaturally sharp, and noticing every thing; Arthur, who rarely spoke except to say something rude; and also the children’s father.

Christian sought his eyes; she was convinced he had heard and understood every word.  But still it had not affected him, except to a wistful watchfulness of herself, so tender that her indignation sank down.

“Shall I wait till to-morrow before I write?  Perhaps, Dr. Grey, after all, it would be as well for us to accept these invitations?”

“Perhaps,” said he, and said no more.  There was no need.  Whether or not they loved, without doubt the husband and wife perfectly understood one another.  So next morning, after a brief consultation with Dr. Grey, Christian sat down and wrote to these grand University ladies, who, though not an atom better than herself, would, she knew well—­and smiled, half amused at the knowledge—­a year ago have scarcely recognized her existence, that Mrs. Grey “accepted with pleasure” their kind invitations.