ible ideal of a husband as she is with Alan; I
should want to quarrel with him just for the fun of the thing, and to
find out his faults for the pleasure of correcting them. A man as
faultless as Alan--I mean as faultless as Felicia considers Alan--would
bore me; but he suits her down to the ground."

But even then Mrs. Herbert did not smile; instead of that her light blue
eyes filled with tears. "Oh! my dear," she said, with a sob in her
voice, "Felicia is ashamed of me."

For all her high spirits, Elisabeth generally recognised tragedy when
she met it face to face; and she knew that she was meeting it now. So
she spoke very gently--

"My dear Mrs. Herbert, whatever do you mean? I am sure you are not very
strong, and so your nerves are out of joint, and make you imagine
things."

"No, my love; it is no imagination on my part. I only wish it were. Who
can know Felicia as well as her mother knows her--her mother who has
worshipped her and toiled for her ever since she was a little baby? And
I, who can read her through and through, feel that she is ashamed of
me." And the tears overflowed, and rolled down Mrs. Herbert's faded
cheeks.

Elisabeth's heart swelled with an immense pity, for her quick insight
told her that Mrs. Herbert was not mistaken; but all she said was--

"I think you are making mountains out of molehills. Lots of girls lose
their heads a bit when first they are married, and seem to regard
marriage as a special invention and prerogative of their own, which
entitles them to give themselves air _ad libitum_; but they soon grow
out of it."

Mrs. Herbert shook her head sorrowfully; her tongue was loosed and she
spake plain. "Oh! it isn't like that with Felicia; I should think
nothing of that. I remember when first I was married I thought that no
unmarried woman knew anything, and that no married woman knew anything
but myself; but, as you say, I soon grew out of that. Why, I was quite
ready, after I had been married a couple of months, to teach my dear
mother all about housekeeping; and finely she laughed at me for it. But
Felicia doesn't trouble to teach me anything; she thinks it isn't worth
while."

"Oh! I can not believe that Felicia is like that. You must be mistaken."

"Mistaken in my own child, whom I carried in my arms as a little baby?
No, my dear; there are some things about which mothers can never be
mistaken, God help them! Do you think I did not understand when the
carriage came round