occasions when they were, her
thoughts had to do with an advantageous marriage for Jane and
Elizabeth, who, it must be confessed, had not had very good luck
holding on to the few eligible young bachelors who had seemed, for a
brief period, to regard them with serious intent. The poor soul was
worried about the girls, as well she might be, since the strides of
time were rapidly bearing both into the sere-and-yellow-leaf period of
life. For her son, she had earnest, passionate mother love, but since,
like all mothers, she was obsessed with the delusion that every girl
in the world, eligible and ineligible, was busy angling for her
darling, she had left his matrimonial future largely to his father.
Frequently her conscience smote her for her neglect of old Hector, but
she smoothed it by promising herself to devote more time to him, more
study to his masculine needs for wifely devotion, as soon as Elizabeth
and Jane should be settled.

Her son's acute illness and the possibility that he might not survive
it had brought her closer to The Laird than these twain had been in
twenty years; the blow that had all but crushed him had not even
staggered her, for she told herself that, during this crisis she must
keep her feet and her head. A wave of pity for her husband and a tinge
of shame for her years of neglect of him revived more than a modicum
of the old honeymoon tenderness, and, to her mild amazement, she
discovered that she was still, in old Hector's eyes, young and
beautiful; her breast, her lips, still had power to soothe and
comfort.

In those trying days she was The Laird's greatest asset. With maternal
stubbornness, she resolutely refused to entertain the thought that her
son might die. She could understand the possibility of some other
woman's son dying, but not hers! she, who knew him so well (or thought
she did, which amounts to the same thing), met with gentle tolerance
and contempt the portentous nods and anxious glances of doctors and
trained nurses. 'Fraid-cats--every last one of them! She told old
Hector so and, to a considerable extent, succeeded in making him
believe it.

After The Laird's interview with Andrew Daney he came home that night
to The Dreamerie, and, to please Nellie, he pretended to partake of
some dinner. Also, during the course of the meal he suddenly decided
to relate to his wife and daughters as much as he knew of the course
of the affair between Donald and Nan Brent; he repeated his
c