em in the state they are now; such a slush of chalk and
clay was never seen."

"What can you expect after a month of heavy rain? You are wringing wet."

"Yes, I was caught in a heavy shower as I was crossing over by
Fresh-Combe-bottom. I am certainly not in a fit state to come into your
dining-room."

"I should think not indeed! I really believe if I were to allow it,
you would sit the whole afternoon in your wet clothes. You'll find
everything ready for you in John's room. I'll give you ten minutes. I'll
tell them to bring up lunch in ten minutes. Stay, will you have a glass
of wine before going upstairs?"

"I am afraid of spoiling your carpet."

"Yes, indeed! not one step further! I'll fetch it for you."

When the parson had drunk the wine, and was following the butler
upstairs, Mrs Norton returned to the dining-room with the empty glass in
her hand. She placed it on the chimney piece; she stirred the fire, and
her thoughts flowed pleasantly as she dwelt on the kindness of her old
friend. "He only got my note this morning," she mused. "I wonder if he
will be able to persuade John to return home." Mrs Norton, in her own
hard, cold way, loved her son, but in truth she thought more of the
power of which he was the representative than of the man himself: the
power to take to himself a wife--a wife who would give an heir to
Thornby Place. This was to be the achievement of Mrs Norton's life, and
the difficulties that intervened were too absorbing for her to think
much whether her son would find happiness in marriage; nor was it
natural to her to set much store on the refining charm and the uniting
influences of mental sympathies. Had she not passed the age when the
sentimental emotions are liveliest? And the fibre was wanting in her to
take into much account the whispering or the silence of passion.

Mrs Norton saw in marriage nothing but the child, and in the child
nothing but an heir--that is to say, a male who would continue the name
and traditions of Thornby Place. This would seem to indicate a material
nature, but such a misapprehension arises from the common habit of
confusing pure thought--thought which proceeds direct from the brain
and lives uncoloured by the material wants of life--with instincts whose
complexity often causes them to appear as mental potentialities, whereas
they are but instincts, inherited promptings, and aversions more or less
modified by physical constitution and the material forces of t