ly. "Perhaps I am wrong to tell you. Perhaps only a mother
would really understand. But it makes me a little sad and bewildered.
My boy--my little baby, who lay in my arms and learnt everything from
me. And now he looks down and lectures me from such an immense height
of superiority, never dreaming that I'm laughing in my heart, because
it's only little Peter, after all."

"And he doesn't lecture Sarah?"

"Oh no; he doesn't lecture Sarah. She is too young to be lectured with
impunity, and too wise. Besides, I think since he went away, and saw
Sarah flattered and spoilt, and queening it among the great people
who didn't know him even by sight, that he has realized that their
relative positions have changed a good deal. You see, little Sarah
Hewel, as she used to be, would have been making quite a great
match in marrying Peter. But Lady Tintern's adopted daughter and
heiress--old Tintern left an immense fortune to his wife, didn't
he?--is another matter altogether. And how could she settle down to
this humdrum life after all the excitement and gaiety she's been
accustomed to?"

"Women do such things every day. Besides--"

"Yes?"

"Is Peter still so much enamoured of a humdrum life?" said John,
dryly.

"I have had no opportunity of finding out; but I am sure he will want
to settle down quietly when all this is over--"

"You mean when he's no longer in love with Sarah?"

"He's barely one-and-twenty; it can't last," said Lady Mary.

"I don't know. If she's so much cleverer than he, I'm inclined to
think it may," said John.

"Oh, of course, if he married her--it would last," said Lady Mary.

"And then?" said John, smiling.

"Perhaps _then_," said Lady Mary; and she laid her hand softly in the
strong hand outstretched to receive it.

CHAPTER XVII

There was a tap at the door of Lady Mary's bedroom, and Peter's voice
sounded without.

"Mother, could I speak to you for a moment?"

"Come in," said Lady Mary's soft voice; and Peter entered and closed
the door, and crossed to the oriel window, where she was sitting at
her writing-table, before a pile of notes and account books.

Long ago, in Peter's childhood, she had learned to make this bedroom
her refuge, where she could read or write or dream, in silence; away
from the two old ladies, who seemed to pervade all the living-rooms at
Barracombe. Peter had been accustomed all his life to seek his mother
here.

She had chosen the room at her marriage,