h a heart so full of love
and loyalty?

"And _you_ couldn't live without _me_, could you?" said Peter,
affectionately; and he laughed. "I suppose you meant to go into that
little, damp, tumble-down Dower House, and watch over me from there;
now didn't you, mummy?"

"I--I thought, when you came of age," faltered Lady Mary, "that I
should give up Barracombe House to you, naturally. I could come and
stay with you sometimes--whether you were married or not, you know.
And--and, of course, the Dower House _does_ belong to me."

"I won't hear of your going there," said Peter, stoutly, "whether I'm
married or not. It's a beastly place."

"It's very picturesque," said Lady Mary, guiltily; "and I--I wasn't
thinking of living there all the year round."

"Why, where on earth else could you have gone?" he demanded, regarding
her with astonishment through the eyeglass.

"There are several places--London," she faltered.

"London!" said Peter; "but my father had a perfect horror of London.
He wouldn't have liked it at all."

"He belonged--to the old school," said Lady Mary, meekly; "to
younger people, perhaps--an occasional change might be pleasant and
profitable."

"Oh! to _younger_ people," said Peter, in mollified tones. "I don't
say I shall _never_ run up to London. I dare say I shall be obliged,
now and then, on business. Not often though. I hate absentee
landlords, as my father did."

"Travelling is said to open the mind," murmured Lady Mary, weakly
pursuing her argument, as she supposed it to be.

"I've seen enough of the world now to last me a lifetime," said Peter,
in sublime unconsciousness that any fate but his own could be in
question.

"I didn't think you would have changed so much as this, Peter," she
said, rather dismally. "You used to find this place so dull."

"I know I used," Peter agreed; "but oh, mother, if you knew how sick
I've been now and then with longing to get back to it! I made up my
mind a thousand times how it should all be when I came home again; and
that you and me would be everything in the world to each other, as you
used to wish when I was a selfish boy, thinking only of getting
away and being independent. I'm afraid I used to be rather selfish,
mother?"

"Perhaps you were--a little," said Lady Mary.

"You will never have to complain of _that_ again," said Peter.

She looked at him with a faint, pathetic smile.

"I shall take care of you, and look after you, just as my father us