o much as himself. After many
struggles against a sense of discouragement, inseparable from high
aspirations, frustrated for the moment, he had broken out of his
chrysalis state of imperfect action, and spread his wings in strong and
serious earnest. His sensitive perception of the great and beautiful,
allied to the creative power of genius soon blazoned his prodigal gifts
to the world, and he had gloried in that sense of might which makes the
true artist feel he has a giant's strength for good or evil.

"I have rejoiced over your new laurels!" exclaimed Maurice, warmly; for
he had learned Ronald's distinction through the journals of the day.

"They are so intangible," replied Ronald, smiling, "that I'm not quite
sure of their existence. I did not tell you that my father and mother
are here and most anxious to see you. When will you pay them a visit?
Can you not come with me now?"

Maurice gladly consented to accompany his friend.

"You are our chief attraction to Washington," continued Ronald. "My
mother was the first to propose that we should seek you out. Your
letters were so sad, and even confused, that she felt you needed her. I
think she fancies she has two sons, Maurice."

"She is the only mother I have ever known," answered Maurice; "and life
is incomplete when a mother's place is unfilled in the soul."

CHAPTER L.

A SECRET DIVINED.

"Take care! the 'Don' will be jealous!" exclaimed Mr. Walton, as he
witnessed his wife's greeting of Maurice,--a greeting as tender as a
true mother could have bestowed. "When Ronald was a boy he would rush
about like one gone mad if his mother ever ventured to take another
child upon her knee,--he would never have his throne usurped. Our 'Don'
was always 'monarch of all he surveyed.'"

This jocular appellation of the 'Don,' Mr. Walton had bestowed upon his
son on account of his early propensity to fight moral windmills, and the
Quixotic zeal with which he espoused the cause of the weak and the fair.
This knight-errant proclivity ripened from the Quixotism of boyhood into
the chivalrous devotion which had manifested itself in his somewhat
romantic friendship for Maurice,--a friendship productive of such happy
results to the young viscount.

Ronald replied, "My affection has gained a victory over my jealousy, as
Maurice discovered some years ago. I have just given him a new evidence
of that fact by accompanying you and my mother to Washington in the hope
of seein