Mary's neck, half laughing and half crying. "I was so afraid you--you
were taking him seriously; and--and he was so selfish, wanting to keep
you all to himself."

"Oh, Sarah, hush!" Lady Mary cried.

She divined it all in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye. It was to
Sarah that she owed the pain and mortification, not to her boy.

Sarah had said Peter was not responsible.

Was he only a puppet in the hands of the girl he loved? Could John
ever have been thus blindly led and influenced? Her wounded heart said
quickly that John was of a different, nobler, stronger nature. But the
mother's instinct leapt to defend her son, and cried also that John
was a man, and Peter but a boy in love, ready to sacrifice the whole
world to her he worshipped. His father would never have done that.
Lady Mary was even capable of an unreasoning pride in Peter's power of
loving; though it was not her--alas! it never had been her--for whom
her boy was willing to make the smallest sacrifice.

But he had honestly meant to devote himself to his mother, according
to his lights, had Sarah's influence not come in the way. Sarah,
who must have divined her secret all the while, and who, with the
dauntlessness of youth, had not hesitated to force open the door
into a world so bright that Lady Mary almost feared to enter it, but
trembled, as it were, upon the threshold of her own happiness--and
Peter's.

They were silent, holding each other in a close embrace, both
conscious of the passing and repassing footsteps upon the gravel path
without.

Sarah was the first to recover herself. She put Lady Mary into her
favourite chair, and came and knelt by her side.

"That's over, and I'm forgiven," she said softly.

"You will make my boy--happy?" whispered Lady Mary.

"I can't tell whether he will be happy or not, if--if he marries me,"
said Sarah. She appeared to smother a laugh. "But Aunt Elizabeth seems
reconciled to the idea. I think you bewitched her this afternoon. She
is in love with you, and with this house, and with Mr. John. But more
particularly with you. When I said I had refused Peter over and over
again, she said I was a fool. But she says that whatever I do. I--I
suppose I let her think," said Sarah, leaning her head against Lady
Mary's knee, "that _some day_--if he is still idiotic enough to wish
it--and if _you_ don't mind--"

"My pretty Sarah--my darling!"

"I'm sure it's only because he's your son," said Sarah, vehemently;
"