.
Never a woman evinced better tact than she. There was no violent change
in her manner, no apologies for the past, or display of sudden affection.
She spoke quietly and sensibly of passing topics: the death, and what
could have led to it; the immediate business on hand, some of the changes
it entailed in the future. "I'll stay with you still, Percival," she
said, "and look after things a bit for you, as I have been doing for your
brother. It is an awful shock, and we must all have time to get over it.
If I had only foreseen this, how I might have spared my temper and poor
Maude's feelings!"

She looked out of the corner of her eye at the young man; but he betrayed
no curiosity to hear more, and she went on unasked.

"You know, Val, for a portionless girl, as Maude is, it was a great blow
to me when I found her fixing her heart upon a younger son. How cross and
unjust it made me I couldn't conceal: mothers are mothers. I wanted her
to take a fancy to Hartledon, dear fellow, and I suppose she could not,
and it rendered me cross; and I know I worried her and worried my own
temper, till at times I was not conscious of what I said. Poor Maude! she
did not rebel openly, but I could see her struggles. Only a week ago,
when Hartledon was talking about his marrying sometime, and hinting that
she might care fox him if she tried, she scored her beautiful drawing all
over with ugly marks; ran the pencil through it--"

"But why do you tell me this now?" asked Val.

"Hartledon--dear me! I wonder how long I shall be getting accustomed to
your name?--there's only you and me and Maude left now of the family,"
cried the dowager; "and if I speak of such things, it is in fulness of
heart. And now about these letters: do you care how they are worded?"

"I don't seem to care about anything," listlessly answered the young man.
"As to the letters, I think I'd rather write them myself, Lady Kirton."

"Indeed you shall not have any trouble of that sort to-day. _I'll_ write
the letters, and you may indulge yourself in doing nothing."

He yielded in his unstable nature. She spoke of business letters, and it
was better that he should write them; he wished to write them; but she
carried her point, and his will yielded to hers. Would it be a type of
the future?--would he yield to her in other things in defiance of his
better judgment? Alas! alas!

She picked up her skirts and left him, and went sailing upstairs to her
daughter's room. Maude