And now, in these days, circumstances gave her a new friend or perhaps, rather, a new acquaintance, where she certainly had looked neither for the one or for the other.  Lady Aylmer and Belinda and the carriage and the horses used, as I have said, to go off without her.  This would take place soon after luncheon.  Most of us know how the events of the day drag themselves on tediously in such a country house as Aylmer Park -a country house in which people neither read, nor flirt, nor gamble, nor smoke, nor have resort to the excitement of any special amusement.  Lunch was on the table at half-past one, and the carriage was at the door at three.  Eating and drinking and the putting on of bonnets occupied the hour and a half.  From breakfast to lunch Lady Aylmer, with her old ‘front’, would occupy herself with her household accounts.  For some days after Clara’s arrival she put on her new ‘front’ before lunch; but of late since the long conversation in the carriage the new ‘front’ did not appear till she came down for the carriage.  According to the theory of her life, she was never to be seen by any but her own family in her old ‘front’.  At breakfast she would appear with head so mysteriously enveloped with such a bewilderment of morning caps that old ‘front’ or new ‘front’ was all the same.  When Sir Anthony perceived this change when he saw that Clara was treated as though she belonged to Aylmer Park then he told himself that his son’s marriage with Miss Amedroz was to be; and, as Miss Amedroz seemed to him to be a very pleasant young woman, he would creep out of his own quarters when the carriage was gone and have a little chat with her being careful to creep away again before her ladyship’s return.  This was Clara’s new friend.

‘Have you heard from Fred since he has been gone?’ the old man asked one day, when he had come upon Clara still seated in the parlour in which they had lunched.  He had been out, at the front of the house, scolding the under-gardener; but the man had taken away his barrow and left him, and Sir Anthony had found himself without employment.

‘Only a line to say that he is to be here on the sixteenth.’

’I don’t think people write so many love-letters as they did when I was young,’ said Sir Anthony.

’To judge from the novels, I should think not.  The old novels used to be full of love-letters.’

‘Fred was never good at writing, I think.’

‘Members of Parliament have too much to do, I suppose,’ said Clara.

’But he always writes when there is any business.  He’s a capital man of business.  I wish I could say as much for his brother or for myself.’

‘Lady Aylmer seems to like work of that sort.’

’So she does.  She’s fond of it I am not.  I sometimes think that Fred takes after her.  Where was it you first knew him?’

‘At Perivale.  We used, both of us, to be staying with Mrs Winterfield.’

’Yes, yes; of course.  The most natural thing in life.  Well, my dear, I can assure you that I am quite satisfied.’