daresay you perceive, Mr. Fenton, in my only son,"
Mrs. Pallinson said, when the young man had withdrawn to the adjoining
apartment. "It was my misfortune to lose an admirable husband very early
in life; and I have been ever since that loss wholly devoted to my son
Theobald. My care has been amply rewarded by his goodness. He is a most
estimable and talented young man, and has already attained an excellent
position in the medical profession."

"You have reason to be proud of him," Gilbert answered kindly.

"I _am_ proud of him, Mr. Fenton. He is the sole delight and chief object
of my life. His career up to this hour has been all that the fondest
mother could desire. If I can only see him happily and advantageously
married, I shall have nothing left to wish for."

"Indeed!" thought Gilbert. "Then I begin to perceive the reason of Mrs.
Pallinson's anxiety about John Saltram. She wants to secure Mrs.
Branston's handsome fortune for this son of hers. Not much chance of
that, I think, fascinating as the doctor may be. Plain John Saltram
stands to win that prize."

They went into the front drawing-room presently, and heard Mr. Pallinson
play the "Hallelujah Chorus," arranged as a duet, with his cousin. He was a
young man who possessed several accomplishments in a small way--could sing
a little, and play the piano and guitar a little, sketch a little, and was
guilty of occasional effusions in the poetical line which were the palest,
most invertebrate reflections of Owen Meredith. In the Maida-hill and St.
John's-wood districts he was accounted an acquisition for an evening party;
and his dulcet accents and engaging manners had rendered him a favourite
with the young mothers of the neighbourhood, who believed implicitly in Mr.
Pallinson's gray powders when their little ones' digestive organs had been
impaired by injudicious diet, and confided in Mr. Pallinson's
carefully-expressed opinion as the fiat of an inscrutable power.

Mr. Theobald Pallinson himself cherished a very agreeable opinion of his
own merits. Life seemed to him made on purpose that Theobald Pallinson
should flourish and succeed therein. He could hardly have formed any idea
of the world except as an arena for himself. He was not especially given
to metaphysics; but it would not have been very difficult for him to
believe that the entire universe was an emanation from the brain of
Theobald Pallinson--a phenomenal world existing only in his sense of
sight an