has had such dear
little puppies. Would you like one? They've all got that nice black
smudge round the eye."

She was watching him as only a mother can watch-stealthily, minutely,
longingly, every little movement, every little change of his face, and
more than all, that fixed something behind which showed the abiding
temper and condition of his heart.

'Something is making him unhappy,' she thought. 'He is changed since I
saw him last, and I can't get at it. I seem to be so far from him--so
far!'

And somehow she knew he had come down this evening because he was lonely
and unhappy, and instinct had made him turn to her.

But she knew that trying to get nearer would only make him put her
farther off, and she could not bear this, so she asked him nothing, and
bent all her strength on hiding from him the pain she felt.

She went downstairs with her arm in his, and leaned very heavily on it,
as though again trying to get close to him, and forget the feeling she
had had all that winter--the feeling of being barred away, the feeling of
secrecy and restraint.

Mr. Pendyce and the two girls were in the drawing-room.

"Well, George," said the Squire dryly, "I'm glad you've come. How you
can stick in London at this time of year! Now you're down you'd better
stay a couple of days. I want to take you round the estate; you know
nothing about anything. I might die at any moment, for all you can tell.
Just make up your mind to stay."

George gave him a moody look.

"Sorry," he said; "I've got an engagement in town."

Mr. Pendyce rose and stood with his back to the fire.

"That's it," he said: "I ask you to do a simple thing for your own
good--and--you've got an engagement. It's always like that, and your
mother backs you up. Bee, go and play me something."

The Squire could not bear being played to, but it was the only command
likely to be obeyed that came into his head.

The absence of guests made little difference to a ceremony esteemed at
Worsted Skeynes the crowning blessing of the day. The courses, however,
were limited to seven, and champagne was not drunk. The Squire drank a
glass or so of claret, for, as he said, "My dear old father took his
bottle of port every night of his life, and it never gave him a twinge.
If I were to go on at that rate it would kill me in a year."

His daughters drank water. Mrs. Pendyce, cherishing a secret preference
for champagne, drank sparingly of a Spanish burgundy,