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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