Neither could she effectually counteract it. So surely as the dowager
came, so surely did the young boy and his sister become unruly with their
step-mother; ill-natured and rude. Lady Hartledon was kind, judicious,
and good; and things would so far be remedied during the crafty dowager's
absences, as to promise a complete cure; but whenever she returned the
evil broke out again. Anne was sorely perplexed. She did not like to deny
the children to their grandmother, who was more nearly related to them
than she herself; and she could only pray that time would bring about
some remedy. The dowager passed her time pretty equally between their
house and her son's. Lord Kirton had not married again, owing, perhaps,
to the watch and ward kept over him. But as soon as he started off to the
Continent, or elsewhere, where she could not follow him, then off she
came, without notice, to England and Lord Hartledon's. And Val, in his
good-nature, bore the infliction passively so long as she kept civil and
peaceable.
In this also her husband's behaviour puzzled Anne. Disliking the dowager
beyond every other created being, he yet suffered her to indulge his
children; and if any little passage-at-arms supervened, took her part
rather than his wife's.
"I cannot understand you, Val," Anne said to him one day, in tones of
pain. "You are not as you used to be." And his only answer was to strain
his wife to his bosom with an impassioned gesture of love.
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