Griffith had kept all his terms at Oxford, and was not
to return thither after the long vacation, but was to read with a
tutor before taking his degree. Moreover bills began to come from
Oxford, not very serious, but vexing my father and raising
annoyances and frets, for Griff resented their being complained of,
and thought himself ill-used, going off to see his own friends
whenever he was put out.
One morning at breakfast, late in October, he announced that Lady
Peacock was in lodgings at Clifton, and asked my mother to call on
her. But mamma said it was too far for the horse--she visited no
one at that distance, and had never thought much of Selina Clarkson
before or after her marriage.
'But now that she is a widow, it would be such a kindness,' pleaded
Griff.
'Depend upon it, a gay young widow needs no kindness from me, and
had better not have it from you,' said my mother, getting up from
behind her urn and walking off, followed by my father.
Griff drummed on the table. 'I wonder what good ladies of a certain
age do with their charity,' he said.
And while we were still crying out at him, Ellen Fordyce and her
father appeared, like mirth bidding good-morrow, at the window. All
was well for the time, but Griff wanted Ellen to set out alone with
him, and take their leisurely way through the wood-path, and she
insisted on waiting for her father, who had got into an endless
discussion with mine on the Reform Bill, thrown out in the last
Session.
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