course I would stay, Duke, if I could be of any service."

"Mr. Finn will expect you to return to him."

"Perhaps it would be better that I should say that I would stay were
it not that I know that I can be of no real service."

"What do you mean by that, Mrs. Finn?"

"Lady Mary should have with her at such a time some other friend."

"There was none other whom her mother loved as she loved you--none,
none." This he said almost with energy.

"There was no one lately, Duke, with whom circumstances caused
her mother to be so closely intimate. But even that perhaps was
unfortunate."

"I never thought so."

"That is a great compliment. But as to Lady Mary, will it not
be as well that she should have with her, as soon as possible,
someone,--perhaps someone of her own kindred if it be possible, or,
if not that, at least one of her own kind?"

"Who is there? Whom do you mean?"

"I mean no one. It is hard, Duke, to say what I do mean, but perhaps
I had better try. There will be,--probably there have been,--some
among your friends who have regretted the great intimacy which chance
produced between me and my lost friend. While she was with us no such
feeling would have sufficed to drive me from her. She had chosen for
herself, and if others disapproved her choice that was nothing to me.
But as regards Lady Mary, it will be better, I think, that from the
beginning she should be taught to look for friendship and guidance to
those--to those who are more naturally connected with her."

"I was not thinking of any guidance," said the Duke.

"Of course not. But with one so young, where there is intimacy there
will be guidance. There should be somebody with her. It was almost
the last thought that occupied her mother's mind. I could not tell
her, Duke, but I can tell you, that I cannot with advantage to your
girl be that somebody."

"Cora wished it."

"Her wishes, probably, were sudden and hardly fixed."

"Who should it be, then?" asked the father, after a pause.

"Who am I, Duke, that I should answer such a question?"

After that there was another pause, and then the conference was ended
by a request from the Duke that Mrs. Finn would stay at Matching for
yet two days longer. At dinner they all met,--the father, the three
children, and Mrs. Finn. How far the young people among themselves
had been able to throw off something of the gloom of death need not
here be asked; but in the presence of their father they were