nd thought with
trepidation of all sorts of unpleasant consequences which might result
from this audacious move of hers.

'I don't know how we _should_ get on,' cried Mrs. Leyburn at last, with
a sort of suppressed sob, while something very like a tear fell on the
stocking she held.

Mrs. Thornburgh was still more frightened, and rushed into a flood
of apologetic speech. Very likely she was wrong perhaps it was all a
mistake, she was afraid she had done harm, and so on. Mrs. Leyburn took
very little heed, but at last she said, looking up and applying a soft
handkerchief gently to her eyes--

'Is his mother nice? Where's his living? Would he want to be married
soon?'

The voice was weak and tearful, but there was in it unmistakable
eagerness to be informed. Mrs. Thornburgh, overjoyed, let loose upon her
a flood of particulars, painted the virtues and talents of Mrs. Elsmere,
described Robert's Oxford career, with an admirable sense for effect,
and a truly feminine capacity for murdering every university detail,
drew pictures of the Murewell living, and rectory, of which Robert had
photographs with him, threw in adroit information about the young man's
private means, and in general showed what may be made of a woman's mind
under the stimulus of one of the occupations most proper to it. Mrs.
Leyburn brightened visibly as the flood proceeded. Alas, poor Catherine!
How little room there is for the heroic in this trivial everyday life of
ours!

Catherine a bride, Catherine a wife and mother, dim visions of a white
soft morsel in which Catherine's eyes and smile should live again--all
these thoughts went trembling and flashing through Mrs. Leyburn's mind
as she listened to Mrs. Thornburgh. There is so much of the artist in
the maternal mind, of the artist who longs to see the work of his hand
in fresh combinations and under all points of view. Catherine, in the
heat of her own self-surrender, had perhaps forgotten that her mother
too had a heart!

'Yes, it all sounds very well' said Mrs. Leyburn at last, sighing, 'but,
you know, Catherine isn't easy to manage.'

'Could you talk to her--find out a little?'

'Well, not to-day; I shall hardly see her. Doesn't it seem to you
that when a girl takes up notions like Catherine's she hasn't time for
thinking about the young men? Why, she's as full of business all day
long as an egg's full of meat. Well, it was my poor Richard's doing--it
was his doing, bless him! I am not go