--nay, that, would she only accept Kitty, only take the little
forlorn creature into the shelter of her motherly arms, even a more
tender and devoted attention than before, on the part of her son, would
be surely hers. He spoke, moreover, the language of sound sense about
his proposed bride. That he was in love, passionately in love, was
evident; but there were moments when he could discuss Kitty, her family,
her bringing-up, her gifts and defects, with the same cool acumen, the
same detachment, apparently, he might have given, say, to the Egyptian
or the Balkan problem. Lady Tranmore was not invited to bow before a
divinity; she was asked to accept a very gifted and lovely child, often
troublesome and provoking, but full of a glorious promise which only
persons of discernment, like herself and Ashe, could fully realize. He
told her, with a laugh, that she could never have behaved even tolerably
to a stupid daughter-in-law. Whereas, let London and society and a few
years of love and living do their work, and Kitty would make one of the
leading women of her time, as Lady Tranmore had been before her. "You'll
help her, you'll train her, you'll put her in the way," he had said,
kissing his mother's hand. "And you'll see that in the end we shall both
of us be so conceited to have had the making of her there'll be no
holding us."

Well, she had yielded--of course she had yielded. She had explained the
matter, so far as she could, to the dazed wits of her paralyzed husband.
She had propitiated the family on both sides; she had brought Kitty to
stay with her, and had advised on the negotiations which banished Madame
d'Estrees from London and the British Isles, in return for a handsome
allowance and the payment of her debts; and, finally, she had with
difficulty allowed the Grosvilles to provide the trousseau and arrange
the marriage from Grosville Park, so eager had she grown in her accepted
task.

And there had been many hours of high reward. Kitty had thrown herself
at first upon William's mother with all the effusion possible. She had
been docile, caressing, brilliant. Lady Tranmore had become almost as
proud of her gifts, her social effect, and her fast advancing beauty as
Ashe himself. Kitty's whims and humors; her passion for this person, and
her hatred of that; her love of splendor and indifference to debt; her
contempt of opinion and restraint, seemed to her, as to Ashe, the mere
crude growth of youth. When she looked