rself, but now she has got those fine folks on her side, the
thing will go on as sure as fate. However, I've done my dooty, that's
one comfort; and now, I suppose I shall have to patch it up as best I
can.'

'I wouldn't!' said Ida hotly.

'Ah, Ida, my dear, you don't know what a mother won't do for her
children.'

A sigh that was often reiterated as Mrs. Morton composed a letter to her
brother-in-law, with some hints from Ida on the spelling, and some from
Mr. Rollstone on the address. The upshot was that her dear brother and
his _fiancee_ were to believe her actuated by the purest sense of the
duty and anxiety she owed to them and her dear children, the orphans of
his dear deceased brother. Now that she had once expressed herself, she
trusted to her dear Frank's affectionate nature to bury all in oblivion,
and to believe that she should be ready to welcome her new sister-in-law
with the warmest affection. Therewith followed a request for five
pounds, to pay for her mourning and darling Ida's, which they had felt
due to him!

Lord Northmoor did not quite see how it was due to him, nor did he intend
to give whatever his dear sister-in-law might demand, but she had made
him so angry that he felt that he must prove his forgiveness to himself.
Mary had not thought it needful to describe the force of the attack upon
herself, or perhaps his pardon might not have gone so far. He sent the
note, and added that as he was wanted at Northmoor for a day or two, he
would take his nephew Herbert with him.

This was something like, as Mrs. Morton said, a kind of tangible
acknowledgment of their relationship and of Herbert as his heir, and it
was a magnificent thing to tell all her acquaintances that her son was
gone to the family seat with his uncle, Lord Northmoor. She would fain
have obtained for him some instructions in the manners of the upper ten
thousand from Mr. Rollstone, but Herbert entirely repudiated listening to
that old fogey, observing that after all it was only old Frank, and he
wasn't going to bother himself for the like of him.

The uncle was fond of his brother's boy, and had devised this plan partly
for the sake of the pleasure it would give, and partly because it was
impossible to form any judgment of his character while with the mother.
He was a fine, well-grown, manly boy, and when seen among his companions,
had an indefinable air of good blood about him. He had hitherto been at
a good day-school whi