"Run away with her to me," chirruped Eugenie, with a vain little laugh.

Suddenly her manner changed, and she looked at her son with dreamy
intensity. "You are so wonderfully young, my dear," she said, "and I am
very old. I had much happiness with your father while he lived. He was
such a wise man. Always he gave in to me in the little things, and
I gave in to him in all the big things. He almost made me a sensible
woman."

There was a strange wistfulness in her face. Through all the years, down
beneath everything, there had been the helpless knowledge in her own
small, garish mind that she had little sense; now she realized that she
was given a chance to atone for all her pettiness by doing one great
sensible thing.

Orlando was about to embrace her, but she briskly, turned away. She
could not endure that. If he did it, the pent-up motherhood would break
forth, and her courage would take flight. She was something more than
the "parokeet of Pernambukoko," as Patsy Kernaghan had called her.

She went to the door of the other room. "I want to talk to the Young
Doctor about Amelia," she said. "He's clever, and perhaps he could give
her a good prescription. I'll send Louise to you. It's nicer courting in
this room where you can see the garden and the grand hills. You're going
to give Louise the little gray mare you lassooed last year, aren't you?
I always think of Louise when I look at that gray mare. You had to break
the pony's heart before she could be what she is--the nicest little
thing that ever was broken by a man's hand; and Louise, she had to have
her heart broken too. Your father and I were almost of an age--he was
two years older, and we had our youth together. And you and Louise
are so wonderfully young, too. Be good to her, son. She's never been
married. She was only in prison with that old lizard. What a horrible
mouth he had! It's shut now," she added remorselessly. Opening the door
of the other room, she disappeared.

A moment later, Louise entered upon Orlando.

The vanished months had worked wonders in her. She was like the young
summer beyond the open windows, alive to her finger-tips, shyly radiant,
with shining eyes, yet in their depths an alluring pensiveness never to
leave them altogether. Knowledge had come to her; an apprehending soul
was speaking in her face. The sweetness of her smile, as she looked at
the man before her, was such as could only be distilled from the bitter
herbs of the de