At least, she said it took her some days,
and certainly it appeared to do so, but from the moment she had begun to
broach the subject, I had guessed how things were going to end.
It was now arranged she should take a house at Roughborough, and go and
live there for a couple of years. As a compromise, however, to meet some
of my objections, it was also arranged that she should keep her rooms in
Gower Street, and come to town for a week once in each month; of course,
also, she would leave Roughborough for the greater part of the holidays.
After two years, the thing was to come to an end, unless it proved a
great success. She should by that time, at any rate, have made up her
mind what the boy's character was, and would then act as circumstances
might determine.
The pretext she put forward ostensibly was that her doctor said she ought
to be a year or two in the country after so many years of London life,
and had recommended Roughborough on account of the purity of its air, and
its easy access to and from London--for by this time the railway had
reached it. She was anxious not to give her brother and sister any right
to complain, if on seeing more of her nephew she found she could not get
on with him, and she was also anxious not to raise false hopes of any
kind in the boy's own mind.
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