ing there as she tells me. I wish with all
my heart she were at Orley Farm."

"Papa saw her yesterday. He went over to The Cleeve on purpose to see
her; and this morning he has been talking to me about her. I cannot
tell you how I grieve for her."

"It is very sad; very sad. But I wish she were in her own house.
Under the circumstances as they now are, I think it would be better
for her to be there than elsewhere. Her name has been disgraced--"

"No, Mr. Mason; not disgraced."

"Yes; disgraced. Mark you; I do not say that she has been disgraced;
and pray do not suppose it possible that I should think so. But a
great opprobrium has been thrown on her name, and it would be better,
I think, that she should remain at home till she has cast it off from
her. Even for myself, I feel it almost wrong to be here; nor would I
have come had I known when I did come as much as I do know now."

"But no one can for a moment think that your mother has done anything
that she should not have done."

"Then why do so many people talk of her as though she had committed a
great crime? Miss Furnival, I know that she is innocent. I know it as
surely as I know the fact of my own existence--"

"And we all feel the same thing."

"But if you were in my place,--if it were your father whose name was
so bandied about in people's mouths, you would think that it behoved
him to do nothing, to go nowhere, till he had forced the world to
confess his innocence. And this is ten times stronger with regard to
a woman. I have given my mother my counsel, and I regret to say that
she differs from me."

"Why do you not speak to papa?"

"I did once. I went to him at his chambers, and he rebuked me."

"Rebuked you, Mr. Mason! He did not do that intentionally I am sure.
I have heard him say that you are an excellent son."

"But nevertheless he did rebuke me. He considered that I was
travelling beyond my own concerns, in wishing to interfere for the
protection of my mother's name. He said that I should leave it to
such people as the Staveleys and the Ormes to guard her from ignominy
and disgrace."

"Oh, he did not mean that!"

"But to me it seems that it should be a son's first duty. They are
talking of trouble and of cost. I would give every hour I have in the
day, and every shilling I own in the world to save her from one week
of such suffering as she now endures; but it cuts me to the heart
when she tells me that because she is suffering, therefor