was now a twinkle from various points,
a glow of firelight, a sensation of warmth, and company. Mrs. Dennistoun
looked out upon it and her face shone. It was not a happy thing that
Elinor should have made shipwreck of her life, should have left her
husband and sought refuge in her mother's house. But how could it be
otherwise than happy that Elinor was there--Elinor and the other little
creature who was something more than Elinor, herself and yet another?
As for John, he looked at it too, with an interest which stopped all
arguments on the cause of it. She was there--wrong, perhaps, impatient;
too quick to fly as she had been too quick to go--but still Elinor all
the same, whether she was right or wrong.

The cab arrived soberly at the door, where Pearson with the pony
carriage, coming by the shorter way with the luggage, had just arrived
also. Mrs. Dennistoun said, hurriedly, "You will find Elinor in the
drawing-room, John," and herself went hastily through the house and up
the stairs. She was going to the baby! John guessed this with a smile of
astonishment and half contempt. How strange it was! There could not be
a more sad position than that in which, in their rashness, these two
women had placed themselves; and yet the mother, a woman of experience,
who ought to have known better, got out of the carriage like a girl,
without waiting to be helped or attended to, and went up-stairs like
the wind, forgetting everything else for that child--that child, the
inheritor of Phil Compton's name and very likely of his qualities--fated
from his birth (most likely) to bring trouble to everybody connected
with him! And yet Elinor was of less interest to her mother. What
strange caprices of nature! what extraordinary freaks of womankind!

The Cottage down-stairs was warm and bright with firelight and
lamplight, and in the great chair by the fire was reclining, lying back
with her book laid on her lap and her face full of eager attention to
the sounds outside, a pale young woman, surrounded by cushions and warm
wraps and everything an invalid could require, who raised to him eyes
more large and shining than he had ever seen before, suffused with a dew
of pain and pleasure and eager welcome. Elinor, was it Elinor? He had
never seen her in any way like an invalid before--never knew her to
be ill, or weak, or unable to walk out to the door and meet him or
anyone she cared for. The sight of her ailing, weak, with those large
glisteni