’And that is no place for her!  No man, as I have told Fred over and over again, ought to drag a woman into hardships for which she is not fitted, and where she interferes with his effectiveness and the comfort of every one else.’

The identical lecture of twelve years since, when he had feared Albinia’s becoming this inconvenient appendage!  If he had repeated it on all like occasions, she did not wonder that it had wearied his aide-de-camp.

‘Perhaps,’ she said, ’the backwoods may have fitted Miss Emily for the life; and I can’t but be glad of Fred’s having been steady to anything.’

Considering this speech like the Kehama days, the General went on to dilate on the damage that marriage was to the ‘service,’ removing the best officers, first from the mess, and then from the army.

‘What a pity William was born too late to be a Knight of St. John!’ said Albinia.

All laughed, but she doubted whether he were pleased, for he addressed himself to one of the aunts, while Maurice spoke to her in an under tone—­’I believe he is quite right.  Homes are better for the individual man, but not for the service.  How remarkably the analogy holds with this other service!’

‘You mean what St. Paul says of the married and unmarried?’

’I always think he and his sayings are the most living lessons I know on the requirements of the other army.’

Albinia mused on the insensible change in Maurice.  He had not embraced his profession entirely by choice.  It had always been understood that one of the younger branches must take the family living; and as Fred had spurned study, he had been bred up to consider it as his fate, and if he had ever had other wishes, he had entirely accepted his destiny, and sincerely turned to his vocation.  The knowledge that he must be a clergyman had ruled him and formed him from his youth, and acting through him on his sister, had rendered her more than the accomplished, prosperous young lady her aunts meant to have made her.  Yet, even up to a year or two after his Ordination, there had been a sense of sacrifice; he loved sporting, and even balls, and it had been an effort to renounce them.  He had avoided coming to London because his keen enjoyment of society tended to make him discontented with his narrow sphere; she had even known him to hesitate to ride with the staff at a review, lest he should make himself liable to repinings.  And now how entirely had all this passed away, not merely by outgrowing the enterprising temper and boyish habits, nor by contentment in a happy home, but by the sufficiency and rest of his service, the engrossment in the charge from his great Captain.  Without being himself aware of it, he had ceased to distrust a holiday, because it was no longer a temptation; and his animation and mirth were the more free, because self-regulation was so thoroughly established, that restraint was no longer felt.

Mrs. Annesley was talking of the little Kendals, who she had ruled should be at Fairmead.