ionately on her son's arm, Mrs. Haughton
mechanically gave herself up to the impulse of her own warm, grateful,
true woman's heart. And her bound forward, her seizure of Darrell's
hand--her first fervent blessing--her after words, simple but eloquent
with feeling--made that heart so transparent, that Darrell looked it
through with respectful eyes.

Mrs. Haughton was still a pretty woman, and with much of that delicacy
of form and outline which constitutes the gentility of person. She had a
sweet voice too, except when angry. Her defects of education, of temper,
or of conventional polish, were not discernible in the overflow of
natural emotion. Darrell had come resolved to be released if possible.
Pleased he was, much more than he had expected. He even inly accepted
for the deceased Captain excuses which he had never before admitted to
himself. The linen-draper's daughter was no coarse presuming dowdy, and
in her candid rush of gratitude there was not that underbred servility
which Darrell had thought perceptible in her epistolary compositions.
There was elegance too, void both of gaudy ostentation and penurious
thrift, in the furniture and arrangements of the room. The income he
gave to her was not spent with slatternly waste or on tawdry gewgaws.
To ladies in general, Darrell's manner was extremely attractive--not the
less winning because of a certain shyness which, implying respect for
those he addressed, and a modest undervaluing of his own merit, conveyed
compliment and soothed self-love. And to that lady in especial such
gentle shyness was the happiest good-breeding.

In short, all went off without a hitch, till, as Darrell was taking
leave, Mrs. Haughton was reminded by some evil genius of her evening
party, and her very gratitude, longing for some opportunity to requite
obligation, prompted her to invite the kind man to whom the facility
of giving parties was justly due. She had never realised to herself,
despite all that Lionel could say, the idea of Darrell's station in the
world--a lawyer who had spent his youth at the back of Holborn, whom the
stylish Captain had deemed it a condescension not to cut, might indeed
become very rich; but he could never be the fashion. "Poor man," she
thought, "he must be very lonely. He is not, like Lionel, a young
dancing man. A quiet little party, with people of his own early rank and
habits, would be more in his way than those grand places to which Lionel
goes. I can but ask