"Poor dear little fellow!" aunt Ju was saying to Mrs. Holdenough. Of course she was talking of Popenjoy. "And you never saw him?"
"No; I never saw him."
"I am told he was a lovely child."
"Very dark, I fancy."
"And all those—those doubts? They're all over now?"
"I never knew much about it, Miss Mildmay. I never inquired into it. For myself, I always took it for granted that he was Popenjoy. I think one always does take things for granted till somebody proves that it is not so."
"The Dean, I take it, has given it up altogether," said Mrs. Houghton to old Lady Brabazon, who had come down especially to meet her nephew, the Marquis, but who had hardly dared to speak a word to him on the previous evening, and was now told that he was gone. Lady Brabazon for a week or two had been quite sure that Popenjoy was not Popenjoy, being at that time under the influence of a very strong letter from Lady Sarah. But, since that, a general idea had come to prevail that the Dean was wrong-headed, and Lady Brabazon had given in her adhesion to Popenjoy. She had gone so far as to call at Scumberg's, and to leave a box of bonbons.
"I hope so, Mrs. Houghton; I do hope so. Quarrels are such dreadful things in families. Brotherton isn't, perhaps, all that he might have been."
"Not a bad fellow, though, after all."
"By no means, Mrs. Houghton, and quite what he ought to be in appearance. I always thought that George was very foolish."