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recollection of my dear sister, who died two years before her cousin, Thomasina Grey, and they were both among the wisest and best of women. I allow that my aunt's manner is not prepossessing, but she had a hard life; first, in accompanying her husband through all his campaigns, and afterwards in nursing him through a long and painful illness; and no one can doubt her goodness of heart.'

'We all know that the Bertrams are a remarkable family,' said Mrs. Bertram; and it would have required a keener perception than her husband possessed to detect a shade of sarcasm in the assertion. Is it not possible that their good qualities are independent, or even in spite, of their names? If I were a man, I should have to get over a good deal before I could marry a Thomasina.'

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We have not got to think of marrying

our darling yet,' said Mr. Bertram, looking

fondly on the fair, placid infant, which lay asleep on its mother's knees.

'No; but we have got to give her a name which shall not be a stumbling-block to her through life.'

'My father and mother have set their hearts on her being named Thomasina,' said Anthony.

'In that case,' rejoined his wife quickly, 'the discussion might have been spared; of course the point is settled.'

My dear wife,' said Anthony, really distressed, 'you know how anxious I am to consult your wishes.'

'Subject always to Sir Richard's will and pleasure. Do not let us argue the point, Anthony. I am more used to it now than I was when I came to this house as a bride, a year ago; at least I am used to submission as far as I am concerned myself. By-and-by I shall cease to believe that I

have the first claim to consideration in all that concerns our child.'

Anthony replied by some soothing words; yet the point was settled, and a few days afterwards the child was baptised by the name of Thomasina, and her great aunt, Thomasina Grey, held her at the font. Mrs. Grey was a shrewd, hard-featured dame, who still had a military air about her, and whose manners, unprepossessing as Anthony had admitted them to be, acquired a shade of additional asperity in her relations with his wife. She was very fond of Anthony, whom she had at one time expected to be her son-in-law as well as her nephew, and she was ready to adopt his little daughter, without extending the same toleration to Mrs. Bertram. She presented to her godchild, among more substantial tokens of affection, a bone, human or equine, which she had picked

off the field of Salamanca, and also produced from among her stores some amazing point-lace, possibly the plunder of a Spanish

convent.

Since Anthony was the only surviving son of Sir Richard Bertram, of Bertram's Chase, and was himself nearly forty years old at the time of the birth of his little Thomasina, the event was hailed by his family as one of considerable importance. Sir Richard had married young, and was still a hale man, who rode well to hounds, and could tire out many a younger man in a day's partridge shooting over the stiff clay soil of the Chase farms. Lady Bertram, a dry, brisk old lady, acknowledged her husband's supremacy in all things, while in other respects she kept the reins well in her own hands; and it was natural that her daughter-in-law should chafe at the restraints of her position. She

was treated with the deference and distinction due to an honoured guest, but she obtained no authority or influence over the household, and it was galling to a young wife to feel that her occasional efforts at self-assertion obtained no favour in her husband's eyes.

Anthony was still as submissive and dutiful a son as when he first went to school, arrayed in the leather breeches and plaited frills which were worn by small boys at the end of the last century. He addressed his father as Sir Richard,' and ever rose out of his chair when he or Lady Bertram entered the room; and when Sir Richard swore at him as an 'ignorant blockhead,' on the rare occasions when he presumed to differ ever so slightly from the received Bertram tradition, Anthony bore the rating as meekly as any hind on the estate. Father and son were alike comely, broad-shouldered men, and, as they sat

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