Ulick wished him to consult his mother, but this he repelled.  He could not endure the sight of a tear in her eye, and she could not restrain them when that chord was touched.  It was a propensity she much disliked, the more because she thought it looked like affectation beside Sophy, whose feelings never took that course, but the more ill-timed the tears, the more they would come, at the most common-place condolence or remote allusion.  It was the effect of the long strain on her powers, and the severe shock coming suddenly after so much pressure and fatigue; moreover, her habits had been so long disorganized that her time seemed blank, and she could not rouse herself from a feeling of languor and depression.  Then Gilbert had been always on her mind, whether at home or absent; and it did not seem at first as if she had enough to fill up time or thoughts—­she absolutely found herself doing nothing, because there was nothing she cared to do.

Mr. Kendal’s first object was the fulfilment of Gilbert’s wishes; but Albinia soon felt how much easier it is for women and boys to make schemes, than for men to bring them to effect, and how rash it is hastily to condemn those who tolerate abuses.

The whole was carefully looked over with a surveyor, and it was only then understood how complicated were the tenures, and how varied the covenants of the numerous small tenements which old Mr. Meadows had amassed.  It was not possible to be free of the legal difficulties under at least a year, and plans of drainage might be impeded for want of other people’s consent.  Even if all had been smooth, the sacrifice of income, by destroying Tibb’s Alley, and reducing the number of cottages, would be considerable.  Meantime, the inspection had brought to light worse iniquities and greater wretchedness than Mr. Kendal had imagined, and his eagerness to set to work was tenfold.  His table was heaped with sanitary reports, and his fits of abstraction were over the components of bad air or builder’s estimates.

It only depended on Ulick to have resumed his intimacy at Willow Lawn; but the habit once broken was not resumed.  He was often there, but never without invitation; and he was not always to be had.  He had less leisure, he was senior clerk, and the junior was dull and untrained; and he often had work to do far into the evening.  He looked bright and well, as though possessed of a sense of being valuable in his own place, more conducive to happiness than even congeniality of employment; and Sophy, though now and then disappointed at his non-appearance, always had a good reason for it, and continued to justify Mr. Dusautoy’s boast that the air of the hill had made another woman of her.

Visiting cards had, of course, come in numbers to Willow Lawn, but Albinia seemed to have caught her husband’s aversions, and it would be dangerous to say how long it was before she lashed herself into setting off for a round of calls.