upon Elinor like a thunderbolt, shattering all her
plans again just at the moment when, after so much shrinking and delay,
she had at last made up her mind to the one thing that must be done at
once. The sound of the driving up of a cab to the door made her go to
the window to look out, without producing any expectation in her mind:
for people were coming and going in Ebury Street all day long. She saw,
however, a box which she recognised upon the cab, and then the door was
opened and Mrs. Dennistoun stepped out. Her mother! the wonder was not
that she came now, but that she had not come much sooner. No letters for
several days, her child and her child's child in town, and trouble in
the air! Mrs. Dennistoun had borne it as long as she could, but there
had come a moment when she could bear it no longer, and she too had
followed Pippo's example and taken the night mail. Elinor stood
motionless at the window, and saw her mother arrive, and did not feel
capable of going to meet her, or of telling whether it was some dreadful
aggravation of evil, or an interposition of Providence to save her for
another hour at least from the ordeal before her.

CHAPTER XLVII.

Mrs. Dennistoun had a great deal to say about herself and the motives
which had at the last been too much for her, which had forced her to
come after her children at a moment's notice, feeling that she could
bear the uncertainty about them no longer; and it was a thing so unusual
with her to have much to say about herself that there was certainly
something apologetic, something self-defensive in this unaccustomed
outburst. Perhaps she had begun to feel a little the unconscious
criticism that gathers round the elder person in a house, the inclination
involuntarily--which every one would repudiate, yet which nevertheless
is true--to attribute to her a want of perception, perhaps--oh, not
unkindly!--a little blunting of the faculties, a suggestion quite
unintentional that she is not what she once was. She explained herself
so distinctly that there was no doubt there was some self-defence in it.
"I had not had a letter for three days."

And Elinor was far more humble than her wont. "I know, mother: I felt as
if it were impossible to write--till it was over----"

"My darling! I thought at last I must come and stand by you. I felt that
I ought to have seen that all the time--that you should have had your
mother by your side to give you countenance."

"I had J