went and a pretty zeal in doing small, odd jobs for
her. Katherine was touched and tenderly amused by her manner, which was
as that of a charming child coveting assurance that it need not be
ashamed of itself, and that it has not really done anything naughty!
But Katherine sighed too, watching this strong, graceful, capable
creature; for, if things had been otherwise with Dickie, how thankfully
she would have given the keeping of his future into this woman's hands!
She had ceased to be jealous even of her son's love. Gladly,
gratefully, would she have shared that love, accepting the second
place, if only--but all that was beyond possibility of hope. Still the
friendship of which he had spoken somewhat bitterly yesterday--poor
darling--remained. Ludovic Quayle's pretensions--she felt very
pitifully towards that accomplished gentleman, all his good qualities
had started into high relief!--but, his pretensions no longer barring
the way to that friendship, she pledged herself to work for the
promotion of it. Dickie was too severe in self-repression, was
over-strained in stoicism; and, ignoring the fact that in his fixity of
purpose, his exaggerations of self-abnegation, he proved himself very
much her own son, she determined secretly, cautiously, lovingly, to
combat all that.

It was, therefore, with warm satisfaction that, as Honoria was about to
rise from the table, she observed Richard emerge, in a degree, from his
abstraction, and heard him say:--

"You told me you'd like to ride over to Farley this afternoon and see
the home for my crippled people. Are you too tired after your headache,
or do you still care to go?"

"Oh! I'm not tired, thanks," Honoria answered. Then she hesitated, and
Richard, looking at her, was aware, as on the bridge yesterday, of a
sudden and singular thickening of her features, which, while marring
her beauty, rendered her aspect strangely pathetic, as of one who
sustains some mysterious hurt. And to him it seemed, for the moment, as
though both that hurt and the infliction of it bore subtle relation to
himself. Common sense discredited the notion as unpermissibly
fantastic, still it influenced and softened his manner.

"But you know you are looking frightfully done up yourself, Richard,"
she went on, with a charming air of half-reluctant protest. "Isn't he,
Cousin Katherine? Are you sure you want to ride this afternoon? Please
don't go out just on my account."

"Oh! I'm right enough," he