. 'Edith only
said she considered Mrs. Blake rather flippant in manner, and a little
too gracious to gentlemen----' but Audrey had refused to hear more.

'I was utterly wretched at Headingly,' went on Mrs. Blake, in her sweet,
plaintive voice; 'and Cyril grew to hate it at last--for my sake. He
says he is sure it will be different here, and that people are so much
nicer. I believe he thinks you angelic, Miss Ross, and your mother only
a degree less so. Only last night he said to me, as we were walking up
and down in the moonlight, "I am certain you will be happy at
Rutherford, mother. You have one nice friend already, and----" But,
there, I had better not repeat my boy's words.'

Audrey felt anxious to change the subject.

'Where did you live before you went to Headingly?' she asked abruptly,
and Mrs. Blake was clever enough to take her cue.

'We were in lodgings in Richmond,' she answered readily. 'You know we
were poor, and I was straining every nerve to keep Cyril at Oxford. I
had been saving up every year for it, but I cannot deny we were sadly
pinched. I had to send Biddy home for a year or two, and Mollie and
Kester and I lived in three little rooms, in such a dull street. Cyril
generally got a holiday engagement for the summer, but when he joined
us--I procured him a bedroom near us--it used to make him very unhappy
to see the way we lived. But I always comforted him by reminding him
that one day he would make a home for us, and that cheered him up.'

'You were certainly very good to him. Some mothers would not have done
half so much,' observed Audrey.

She was repaid for this little speech, as a smile, almost infantile in
its sweetness, came to Mrs. Blake's lip.

'I wish Cyril could hear you say that. But he knows--he feels--I have
done my best for him. Yes, my darling, I have indeed!' She clasped her
hands and sighed. 'What did a little extra work, a few sacrifices,
matter, when one looked to the future? We were very straitened--the poor
children did not always have what they needed--but I don't think we
were, any of us, unhappy.'

'I can so well understand that. I think people are too much afraid of
being poor. I could never see, myself, why poverty should hinder
happiness.'

'Do you not?' looking at her a little curiously; 'but you have not
served my apprenticeship. You do not know how hard it is for a
pleasure-loving nature to be deprived of so many sources of
enjoyment--to have to stint one's tas