orner of her carriage, not knowing her mother's anxious
look followed her still--what was it? Oh, dreadful, dreadful life! oh,
fruitless love and longing!--was it relief? The mother tried to get that
look out of her mind as she drove silently and slowly home, creeping up
hill after hill. There was no need to hurry. All that she was going to
was an empty and silent house, where nobody awaited her. What was that
look on Elinor's face? Relief! to have it over, to get away again,
away from her old home and her fond mother, away to her new life. Mrs.
Dennistoun was not a jealous mother nor unreasonable. She said to
herself--Well! it was no doubt a trial to the child to come back--to
come alone. All the time, perhaps, she was afraid of being too closely
questioned, of having to confess that _he_ did not want to come, perhaps
grudged her coming. She might be afraid that her mother would divine
something--some hidden opposition, some dislike, perhaps, on his part.
Poor Elinor! and when everything had passed over so well, when it was
ended, and nothing had been between them but love and mutual
understanding, what wonder if there came over her dear face a look of
relief! This was how this good woman, who had seen a great many things
in her passage through life, explained her child's look: and though she
was sad was not angry, as many less tolerant and less far-seeing might
have been in her place.

John, that good John, to whom she had been so ungrateful, came down next
Saturday, and to him she confided her great news, but not all of it.
"She came down--alone?" he said.

"Well," said Mrs. Dennistoun, bravely; "she knew very well it was her I
wanted to see, and not Philip. They say a great deal about mothers-in-law,
but why shouldn't we in our turn have our fling at sons-in-law, John? It
was not him I wanted to see: it was my own child: and Elinor understood
that, and ran off by herself. Bless her for the thought."

"I understand that," said John. He had given the mother more than one
look as she spoke, and divined her better than she supposed. "Oh, yes, I
can understand that. The thing I don't understand is why he let her; why
he wasn't too proud to bring her back to you, that you might see she had
taken no harm. If it had been I----"

"Ah, but it was not you," said Mrs. Dennistoun; "you forget that. It
never could have been you."

He looked quickly at her again, and it was on his lips to ask, "Why
could it never have been I?