rank. Then, too, she had suffered a bereavement, had seen a strong man,
who had been her strong man, die in her arms. Life had given to her more
of its realities than of its shams; and it is the realities that mark
the passage of the years, and number for us the throbs in the great
heart of time. Lady Locke knew that she felt much older than Lord Reggie
would feel when he was twenty-eight, if he went on living at least as he
was living now.

"Has he a mother?" she asked her cousin, Betty Windsor, one day as they
were driving slowly down the long line of staring faces that filled the
Park at five o'clock on warm afternoons in summer.

Mrs. Windsor, who was almost lost in the passion of the gazer, and who
was bowing about twice a minute to passing acquaintances, or to friends
rigid upon tiny green chairs, gave a quarter of her mind violently to
her companion, and answered hurriedly--

"Two, dear, practically."

"Two!"

"Yes. His own mother divorced his father, and the latter has married
again. The second Marchioness of Hedfield wrote to Lord Reggie the other
day, and said she was prepared to be a second mother to him. So you see
he has two. So nice for the dear boy."

"Do you think so? But his own mother--what is she like?"

"I don't know her. Nobody does. She never comes to town or stays in
country houses. But I believe she is very tall, and very religious--if
you notice, it is generally short, squat people who are atheists--and
she lives at Canterbury, where she does a great deal of good among the
rich. They say she actually converted one of the canons to a belief in
the Thirty-Nine Articles after he had preached against them, and
miracles, in the Cathedral. And canons are very difficult to convert, I
am told."

"Then she is a good woman. And is Lord Reggie fond of her?"

"Oh yes, very. He spent a week with her last year, and I think he
intends to spend another this year. She is very pleased about it. He and
Mr. Amarinth are going down for the hop-picking."

"What a strange idea!"

"Yes, deliciously original. They say that hop-picking is quite Arcadian.
Mr. Amarinth is having a little pipe made for him at Chappell's or
somewhere, and he is going to sit under a tree and play old tunes by
Scarlatti to the hop-pickers while they are at work. He says that more
good can be done in that sort of way, than by all the missionaries who
were ever eaten by savages. I don't believe much in missionaries."

"Do you bel