iage were hardly able to take her to the
railway-station. Then there arose the question who should drive her.
Arthur offered to do so; but she was going on a journey of decided
hostility as regarded him, and under such circumstances she could not
bring herself to use his services even over a portion of the road. So
the stable-boy was her charioteer.

She talked about Lord Stapledean the whole evening before she went.
Arthur would have explained to her something of that nobleman's
character if she would have permitted it. But she would not. When he
hinted that she would find Lord Stapledean austere in his manner, she
answered that his lordship no doubt had had his reasons for being
austere with so very young a man as Arthur had been. When he told her
about the Bowes hotel, she merely shook her head significantly. A
nobleman who had been so generous to her and hers as Lord Stapledean
would hardly allow her to remain at the inn.

"I am very sorry that the journey is forced upon me," she said to
Arthur, as she sat with her bonnet on, waiting for the vehicle.

"I am sorry that you are going, mother, certainly," he had answered;
"because I know that it will lead to disappointment."

"But I have no other course left open to me," she continued. "I
cannot see my poor girls turned out houseless on the world." And
then, refusing even to lean on her son's arm, she stepped up heavily
into the carriage, and seated herself beside the boy.

"When shall we expect you, mamma?" said Sophia.

"It will be impossible for me to say; but I shall be sure to write as
soon as I have seen his lordship. Good-bye to you, girls." And then
she was driven away.

"It is a very foolish journey," said Arthur.

"Mamma feels that she is driven to it," said Sophia.

Mrs. Wilkinson had written to Lord Stapledean two days before she
started, informing his lordship that it had become very necessary
that she should wait upon him on business connected with the living,
and therefore she was aware that her coming would not be wholly
unexpected. In due process of time she arrived at Bowes, very tired
and not a little disgusted at the great expense of her journey. She
had travelled but little alone, and knew nothing as to the cost of
hotels, and not a great deal as to that of railways, coaches, and
post-chaises. But at last she found herself in the same little inn
which had previously received Arthur when he made the same journey.

"The lady can have a po