ively at all the privileges. She was clinging and small
and delicate and her eyes, her features, her plaintive gestures, united
in an irresistible appeal to emotions.

"Where is Jonathan?" she asked, "I hoped he would welcome me."

"So I do, dearest mother--so I do," replied the young man, running
hurriedly down the steps and then slipping his arm about her. "You came
a minute or two earlier than I expected you, or I should have met you in
the drive."

Half supporting, half carrying her, he led the way into the house and
placed her on a sofa in the long drawing-room.

"I am afraid the journey has been too much for you," he said tenderly.
"Shall I tell Abednego to bring you a glass of wine."

"Kesiah will mix me an egg and a spoonful of sherry, dear, she knows
just how much is good for me."

Kesiah, still grasping her small black bag, went into the dining-room
and returned, bearing a beaten egg, which she handed to her sister.
In her walk there was the rigid austerity of a saint who has adopted
saintliness not from inclination, but from the force of a necessity
against which rebellion has been in vain. Her plain, prominent features
wore, from habit, a look of sullen martyrdom that belied her natural
kindness of heart; and even her false brown front was arranged in
little hard, flat curls, as though an artificial ugliness were less
reprehensible in her sight than an artificial beauty.

In the midst of the long room flooded with sunshine, the little lady
reclined on her couch and sipped gently from the glass Kesiah had handed
her. The tapestried furniture was all in soft rose, a little faded from
age, and above the high white wainscoting on the plastered walls, this
same delicate colour was reflected in the rich brocaded gowns in the
family portraits. In the air there was the faint sweet scent of cedar
logs that burned on the old andirons.

"So you came all the way home to see your poor useless mother,"
murmured Mrs. Gay, shielding her cheek from the firelight with a peacock
hand-screen.

"I wanted to see for myself how you stand it down here--and, by Jove,
it's worse even than I imagined! How the deuce have you managed to drag
out twenty years in a wilderness like this among a tribe of barbarians?"

"It is a great comfort to me, dear, to think that I came here on your
uncle's account and that I am only following his wishes in making the
place my home. He loved the perfect quiet and restfulness of it."

"Quiet