rs. This
is strictly between ourselves, and you must remember that all my young
people are so ludicrously well off, that an old woman doing as she likes
with her own will do no one any harm. If I had had children, that, of
course, would have made a difference. To me, who have lived the quiet
life I have lately lived, the soldier, the man of action, appeals very
strongly. Much as I love this place, it seems to me that I should love
it still more if it came as quiet after a storm, a haven of rest after
the battle of life."

Then she spoke of Diana. "Hers is a wonderful character, and I often
think how beautiful it is that she should follow your dear mother at
Hames."

"You feel that?" I said.

"Very, very strongly, dear. How happy it must have made her to feel that
her grandchildren should have such a mother. I may be wrong, and you
will smile at an old woman's prejudice and think that she is looking
back with prejudiced eyes into that wonderful past which is always so
much better than any present. I am not, but still it seems to me that
Diana has something that all young people have not got nowadays, a
reverence for the old, an admiration for the good, and a pity for the
poor and distressed. These things take you far through life, dear, and,
combined with her wonderful vitality and beauty, make her a power.

"Talking of your beautiful mother, it was said years ago that she was
the only woman of whom I had ever been jealous. I am old enough to
tell you these things. It is the privilege of the old to enlist the
sympathies of the young! But it was not true. I had every reason to be
jealous, as had most women I ever saw, but jealousy in connection with
anything so perfect as your mother, I think, was not possible. Her
beauty was of the kind which disarms jealousy. It was beyond comparison
or criticism. It seemed to belong to another world, and yet she was so
tender to the sinners, so understanding, so full of loving kindness.
Hers was a beauty of the soul as well as the body, and that beauty is as
remote from the everyday prettiness as the earth is from the stars. Her
expression had something of the divine in it, as if she had seen God
face to face. I see the same look coming in Diana's face. Old Sir George
used to say it would be worth committing a sin to be forgiven by your
mother. He said her look was a benediction."

As I said good-by to Lady Mary, she held my hand and said, "Betty dear,
you will some day forgive a