have your mother to fall back upon,
Elinor. I should have just the _moments perdus_, don't you see, when you
were doing nothing else, when you were wanted for nothing else. I
promise you, my darling, I should never be _de trop_, and would never
interfere."

"Oh, mamma, mamma!" Elinor cried again as if words failed her; and so
they did, for she said scarcely anything more, and evaded any answer. It
went to her mother's heart, yet she made her usual excuses for it. Poor
child, once so ready to decide, accepting or rejecting with the
certainty that no opposition would be made to her will, but now afraid
to commit herself, to say anything that her husband would not approve!
Well! Mrs. Dennistoun said to herself, many a young wife is like that,
and yet is happy enough. It depends so much on the man. Many a man
adores his wife and is very good to her, and yet cannot bear that she
should seem to settle anything without consulting his whim. And Philip
Compton had never been what might be called an easy-going man. It was
right of Elinor to give no answer till she knew what he would like. The
dreadful thing was that she expressed no pleasure in her mother's
proposal, scarcely looked as if she herself would like it, which was a
thing which did give an unquestionable wound.

"Mamma," she said, as they were driving to the station, not in the pony
carriage this time, but in the fly, for the weather was bad, "don't be
vexed that I don't say more about your wonderful, your more than kind
offer."

"Kind is scarcely a word to use, Elinor, between you and me."

"I know, I know, mamma--and I as good as refuse it, saying nothing. Oh,
if I could tell you without telling you! I am so frightened--how can I
say it?--that you should see things you would not approve!"

"My dear, I am of one generation and you are of another. I am an old
woman, and your husband is a young man. But what does that matter? We
can agree to differ. I will never thrust myself into his private
affairs, and he----"

"Oh, mother, mother darling, it is not that," Elinor said. And she
went away without any decision. But in a few days there came to Mrs.
Dennistoun a letter from Philip himself, most nobly expressed, saying
that Elinor had told him of her mother's kind offer, and that he
hastened to accept it with the utmost gratitude and devotion. He had
just been wondering, he wrote, how he was to muster all things necessary
for Elinor, with the business engagements wh