ere the hand might plunge. It
takes but the throb of a nerve to carry such a complex impression from
the eye to the mind, but the object of the throb had perhaps felt the
electric flash of its passage, for her colour rose while Amherst spoke.

"Ah, here is my father now," she said with a vague accent of relief, as
Mr. Langhope's stick was heard tapping its way across the hall.

When he entered, accompanied by Mrs. Ansell, his sharp glance of
surprise at her visitor told her that he was as much misled as herself,
and gave her a sense of being agreeably justified in her blunder. "If
_father_ thinks you're a gentleman----" her shining eyes seemed to say,
as she explained: "This is Mr. Amherst, father: Mr. Truscomb has sent
him."

"Mr. Amherst?" Langhope, with extended hand, echoed affably but vaguely;
and it became clear that neither Mrs. Westmore nor her father had ever
before heard the name of their assistant manager.

The discovery stung Amherst to a somewhat unreasoning resentment; and
while he was trying to subordinate this sentiment to the larger feelings
with which he had entered the house, Mrs. Ansell, turning her eyes on
him, said gently: "Your name is unusual. I had a friend named Lucy Warne
who married a very clever man--a mechanical genius----"

Amherst's face cleared. "My father _was_ a genius; and my mother is Lucy
Warne," he said, won by the soft look and the persuasive voice.

"What a delightful coincidence! We were girls together at Albany. You
must remember Judge Warne?" she said, turning to Mr. Langhope, who,
twirling his white moustache, murmured, a shade less cordially: "Of
course--of course--delightful--most interesting."

Amherst did not notice the difference. His perceptions were already
enveloped in the caress that emanated from Mrs. Ansell's voice and
smile; and he only asked himself vaguely if it were possible that this
graceful woman, with her sunny autumnal air, could really be his
mother's contemporary. But the question brought an instant reaction of
bitterness.

"Poverty is the only thing that makes people old nowadays," he
reflected, painfully conscious of his own share in the hardships his
mother had endured; and when Mrs. Ansell went on: "I must go and see
her--you must let me take her by surprise," he said stiffly: "We live
out at the mills, a long way from here."

"Oh, we're going there this morning," she rejoined, unrebuffed by what
she probably took for a mere social awkwardn