Another journey of travellers to London, in the rear of the chariot, was not diversified by a single incident or refreshed by scraps of dialogue.  Lady Charlotte had her brother Rowsley with her, and he might be taciturn,—­she drove her flocks of thoughts, she was busily and contentedly occupied.  Although separation from him stirred her mind more excitedly over their days and deeds of boy and girl, her having him near, and having now won him to herself, struck her as that old time’s harvest, about as much as can be hoped for us from life, when we have tasted it.

The scene of the invasion of Steignton by the woman and her aunt, and that man Morsfield, was a steel engraving among her many rapid and featureless cogitations.  She magnified the rakishness of the woman’s hand on hip in view of the house, and she magnified the woman’s insolence in bringing that man Morsfield—­to share probably the hospitality of Steignton during the master’s absence!  Her trick of caricature, whenever she dealt with adversaries, was active upon the three persons under observation of the windows.  It was potent to convince her that her brother Rowsley had cast the woman to her native obscurity.  However, Lady Charlotte could be just:  the woman’s figure, and as far as could be seen of her face, accounted for Rowsley’s entanglement.

Why chastize that man Morsfield at all?  Calling him out would give a further dip to the name of Ormont.  A pretty idea, to be punishing a roan for what you thank him for!  He did a service; and if he’s as mad about her as he boasts, he can take her and marry her now Rowsley ’s free of her.

Morsfield says he wants to marry her—­wants nothing better.  Then let him.  Rowsley has shown him there ’s no legal impediment.  Pity that young Weyburn had to be sent to do watch-dog duty.  But Rowsley would not have turned her back to travel alone:  that is, without a man to guard.  He ’s too chivalrous.

The sending of Weyburn, she now fancied, was her own doing, and Lady Charlotte attributed it to her interpretation of her brother’s heart of chivalry; though it would have been the wiser course, tending straight and swift to the natural end, if the two women and their Morsfield had received the dismissal to travel as they came.

One sees it after the event.  Yes, only Rowsley would not have dismissed her without surety that she would be protected.  So it was the right thing prompted on the impulse of the moment.  And young Weyburn would meet some difficulty in protecting his ‘Lady Ormont,’ if she had no inclination for it.

Analyzing her impulse of the moment, Lady Charlotte credited herself, not unjustly, with a certain considerateness for the woman, notwithstanding the woman’s violent intrusion between brother and sister.  Knowing the world, and knowing the upper or Beanstalk world intimately, she winked at nature’s passions.  But when the legitimate affection of a brother and sister finds them interposing, they are, as little parsonically as possible, reproved.  If persistently intrusive, they are handed to the constable.