Lady Walham might shrink with terror at the
Frenchman's name, but her son could forgive him, with all his heart, and
kiss his mother's hand, and thank him as the best friend of his life.
During all the days of his illness, Kew had never once mentioned Ethel's
name, and once or twice as his recovery progressed, when with doubt and
tremor his mother alluded to it, he turned from the subject as one that
was disagreeable and painful. Had she thought seriously on certain
things? Lady Walham asked. Kew thought not, "but those who are bred up as
you would have them, mother, are often none the better," the humble young
fellow said. "I believe she is a very good girl. She is very clever, she
is exceedingly handsome, she is very good to her parents and her brothers
and sisters; but--" he did not finish the sentence. Perhaps he thought,
as he told Ethel afterwards, that she would have agreed with Lady Walham
even worse than with her imperious old grandmother.
Lady Walham then fell to deplore Sir Brian's condition, accounts of whose
seizure of course had been despatched to the Kehl party, and to lament
that a worldly man as he was should have such an affliction, so near the
grave and so little prepared for it.
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