her, and that she had
exchanged her customary dull, old-fashioned garb for a beautiful and
becoming dress. He gave an involuntary start, and immediately she
perceived him.

She stretched out her arms to him with a cry that rang through the
rafters of the hall. The roses were scattered.

"My boy! O God, my darling boy!"

In the space of a flash--a second--Lady Mary had seen and understood.
Her arms were round him, and her face hidden upon his empty sleeve.
She was as still as death. Peter stooped his head and laid his cheek
against her hair; he felt for one fleeting moment that he had never
known before how much he loved his mother.

"Forgive me for keeping it dark, mother," he whispered presently; "but
I knew you'd think I was dying, or something, if I told you. It had to
be done, and I don't care--much--now; one gets used to anything. My
aunts nearly had a fit when I came in; but I knew _you'd_ be too
thankful to get me home safe and sound, to make a fuss over what can't
be helped. It's--it's just the fortune of war."

"Oh, if I could meet the man who did it!" she cried, with fire in her
blue eyes.

"It wasn't a man; it was a gun," said Peter. "Let's forget it. I
say--doesn't it feel rummy to be at home again?"

"But you have come back a man, Peter. Not a boy at all," said Lady
Mary, laughing through her tears. "Do let me look at you. You must be
six feet three, surely."

"Barely six feet one in my boots," said Peter, reprovingly.

"And you have a moustache--more or less."

"Of course I have a moustache," said Peter, gravely stroking it. He
mechanically replaced his eyeglass.

Lady Mary laughed till she cried.

"Do forgive me, darling. But oh, Peter, it seems so strange. My boy
grown into a tall gentleman with an eyeglass. Nothing has happened to
your eye?" she cried, in sudden anxiety.

"No, no; I am just a little short-sighted, that is all," he mumbled,
rather awkwardly.

He found it difficult to explain that he had travelled home with a
distinguished man who had captivated his youthful fancy, and caused
him to fall into a fit of hero-worship, and to imitate his idol as
closely as possible. Hence the eyeglass, and a few harmless mannerisms
which temporarily distinguished Peter, and astonished his previous
acquaintance.

But there was something else in Peter's manner, too, for the moment.
A new tenderness, which peeped through his old armour of sulky
indifference; the chill armour of his boyhood,