longer with all this nonsense about Mollie. I have to go up to
Rosendale, you know; Mrs. Cardell begged me to sit with her a little,
and I am late now. Mollie will give you your tea. Come--have you
forgiven your mother?' passing her white taper fingers over his dark
hair as she spoke.

Cyril's only answer was to draw her face down to his.

Mrs. Blake smiled happily at him as she left the room--what did she care
if only everything were right between her and her idolised boy? But
Cyril was not so satisfied. With all his love for his mother, he was by
no means blind to her many faults. He knew she was far too partial in
her treatment of her children--that she was often thoughtless of
Kester's comfort, and a little hard in her judgment of him; and she was
not always judicious with respect to Mollie. At times she was lax, and
left the girl to her own devices; but in certain moods, when Cyril had
been speaking to her, perhaps, there would be nothing right. It was then
that Mollie was accused of untidiness and feckless ways, when hints of
idleness were dropped, and strict rules, never to be carried out, were
made. Mollie must do a copy every day; she wrote worse than a child of
ten. Her ignorance of geography was disgraceful; she had no idea where
the Tigris was, and she could not name half the counties in Scotland,
and so on. For four-and-twenty hours Mollie would be drilled, put
through her facings, lectured, and made generally miserable; but by the
next morning or so the educational cleaning would be over. 'Mother
wasn't in a mood for teaching,' Mollie would say in her artless fashion
as she carried away her books.

'No; he could not alter his mother's nature,' Cyril thought sadly. He
could only do the best he could for them all. He was clever enough to
see that his mother was wilfully shutting her eyes to her own
mismanagement of Mollie, and that she preferred drifting on in this
happy-go-lucky fashion. With all her energy and fits of industry, she
was extremely indolent, and never liked taking trouble about anything.
No; it was no use talking to her any more about Mollie, unless he had
some definite suggestion to make--and then it was that he wondered if
Miss Ross would help him; she always helped everyone, and he knew that
she was in full possession of the facts.

'I am not a bit ashamed of our poverty,' thought Cyril, as he plunged
down the sweet, dewy lanes. 'One day I shall get on, and be any man's
equal; but the