him--her handsome boy, whom all men
liked, and all women would gladly love.

"A good son makes a good husband," she said aloud, following her own
thoughts.

"And John has been a good son, mother," said Maurice, cordially.

"Yes, yes, in his way, perhaps; but I was thinking of you, my boy, not
of him, and how lucky will be the woman who is your wife, Maurice--will
it be----"

Maurice stooped quickly, and laid his hand playfully over her lips.

"I don't know, mother dear--never ask me--for I don't know it myself."
And then he kissed her, and wished her good-night, and left her.

She sat long over her fire, dreaming, by herself, thinking a little,
perhaps, of the elder son, and the bride he was going to bring her, whom
she should have to welcome whether she liked her or no, but thinking more
of the younger, whose inner life she had studied, and who was so entirely
dear and precious to her. It was very little to her that he had been
extravagant and thoughtless, that he had lost money in betting and
racing--these were minor faults--and she and John between them had always
managed to meet his difficulties; they had not been, in truth, very
tremendous. But for that, he had never caused her one day's anxiety,
never given her one instant's pain. "God grant he may get a wife who
deserves him," was the mother's prayer that night. "I doubt if Helen
be worthy of him; but if he loves her, as I believe he must do, no word
of mine shall stand between him and his happiness."

And then she went to bed, and dreamed, as mothers dream of the child they
love best.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE MEMBER FOR MEADOWSHIRE.

Honour and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honour lies.

Pope, "Essay on Man."

About five miles from Kynaston Hall, as the crow flies, across the
fields, stood, as the house-agents would have described it, "a large
and commodious modern mansion, standing in about eighty acres of
well-timbered park land."

I do not know that any description that could be given of Shadonake would
so well answer to the reality as the above familiar form of words.

The house was undoubtedly large, very large, and it was also modern, very
modern. It was a handsome stone structure, with a colonnade of white
pillars along the entrance side, and with a multiplicity of large
plate-glass windows stretching away in interminable vistas in every
direction. A broad gravel sweep led up to the front door;