o took
and bowed over Mrs. Warrender's hand. The Honourable John bowed over it
as if he were about to kiss it, and might have actually touched the black
glove with his carmine lips (would they have left a mark?) had not she
drawn it away.

What a curious office to be thus imposed upon her! To give countenance
and support, or to take care of, as little Geoff said, this young woman
whom she scarcely knew, who had not in the depth of trouble made any
claim upon her sympathy. Mrs. Warrender looked forward with anything but
satisfaction to the task. But when she told her tale it was received
with a sort of enthusiasm. "Oh, how nice of her!" cried Minnie and
Chatty; and their mother saw, with half amusement, that they thought all
the more of her because her companionship had been sought for by Lady
Markland. And in Warrender's eyes a fire lighted up. He turned away his
head, and after a moment said, "You will be very tender to her, mother."
Mrs. Warrender was too much confused and bewildered to make any reply.

When the next day came she went, with reluctance and a sense of
self-abnegation, which was not gratifying, but painful, to fulfil this
office. "She does not want me, I know," Mrs. Warrender said to her son,
who accompanied her, to form part of the cortege, in the little brougham
which had been to Markland but once or twice in so many years, and this
last week had traversed the road from one house to another almost every
day. "I think you are mistaken, mother; but even so, if you can do her
any good," said Theo, with unusual enthusiasm. His mother thought it
strange that he should show so much feeling on the subject; and she went
through the great hall and up the stairs, through the depths of the vast
silent house, to Lady Markland's room, with anticipations as little
agreeable as any with which woman ever went to an office of kindness.
Lady Markland's room was on the other side of the house, looking upon
a landscape totally different from that through which her visitor had
come. The window was open, the light unshaded, and Lady Markland sat at
a writing-table covered with papers, as little like a broken-hearted
widow as could be supposed. She was dressed, indeed, in the official
dress of heavy crape, and wore (for once) the cap which to Geoff had
been so overpowering a symbol of sorrow; but, save for these signs, and
perhaps a little additional paleness in her never high complexion, was
precisely as Mrs. Warrender had