hen the understanding of
such a woman is almost equal to those "larger other eyes" with which it
is our fond hope those who have left us for a better country see, if
they are permitted to see, our petty doings, knowing, better than we
know ourselves, what excuses, what explanations, they are capable of.
"As for the sacrifice," she said, "we will say nothing of that, Elinor.
It is a vain thing to say that if my life would do you any pleasure--for
you don't want to take my life, and probably the best thing I can do
for you is to go on as long as I can. But in the meantime there's no
question at all of sacrifice--and if you can come down now and then for
a day, and sleep in the fresh air----"

"I will, I will, mamma," said Elinor, hiding her face on her mother's
shoulder; and they would have been something more than women if they had
not cried together as they held each other in that embrace--in which
there was so much more than met either eye or ear.

CHAPTER XXII.

It was about the 10th of June when Mrs. Dennistoun left London. She had
been in town for about five weeks, which looked like as many months, and
it was with a mingled sense of relief, and of that feeling which is like
death in the heart, the sense of nothing further to be done, of the end
of opportunity, the conclusion of all power to help, which sometimes
comes over an anxious mind, without in any respect diminishing the
anxiety, giving it indeed a depth and pang beyond any other feeling that
is known to the heart of man. What could she do more for her child?
Nothing. It was her only policy to remain away, not to see, certainly
not to remark anything that was happening, to wait if perhaps the moment
might come when she would be of use, and to hope that perhaps that
moment might never need to come, that by some wonderful turn of affairs
all might yet go well. She went back to Windyhill with the promise of a
visit "soon," Philip himself had said--in the pleasure of getting the
house, which was her house, which she had paid for and provisioned, to
himself for his own uses. Mrs. Dennistoun could not help hearing through
her maid something of the festivities which were in prospect after she
was gone, the dinners and gay receptions at which she would have been
_de trop_. She did not wish to hear of them, but these are things that
will make themselves known, and Mrs. Dennistoun had to face the fact
that Elinor was more or less consenting to the certainty o