, whispering--I think she
kissed him--then slowly, quietly, she walked out of the study. I
followed. Outside the door we parted, and I heard her go up-stairs to
her own room.

It might have been half an hour afterwards, when Maud and I, coming in
from the garden, met her standing in the hall. No one was with her,
and she was doing nothing; two very remarkable facts in the daily life
of the mother of the family.

Maud ran up to her with some primroses.

"Very pretty, very pretty, my child."

"But you don't look at them--you don't care for them--I'll go and show
them to Miss Silver."

"No," was the hasty answer. "Come back, Maud--Miss Silver is occupied."

Making some excuse, I sent the child away, for I saw that even Maud's
presence was intolerable to her mother. That poor mother, whose
suspense was growing into positive agony.

She waited--standing at the dining-room window--listening--going in and
out of the hall,--for another ten minutes.

"It is very strange--very strange indeed. He promised to come and tell
me; surely at least he ought to come and tell me first--me, his
mother--"

She stopped at the word, oppressed by exceeding pain.

"Hark! was that the study door?"

"I think so; one minute more and you will be quite certain."

Ay! one minute more, and we WERE quite certain. The young lover
entered--his bitter tidings written on his face.

"She has refused me, mother. I never shall be happy more."

Poor Guy!--I slipped out of his sight and left the lad alone with his
mother.

Another hour passed of this strange, strange day. The house seemed
painfully quiet. Maud, disconsolate and cross, had taken herself away
to the beech-wood with Walter; the father and Edwin were busy at the
mills, and had sent word that neither would return to dinner. I
wandered from room to room, always excepting that shut-up room where,
as I took care, no one should disturb the mother and son.

At last I heard them both going up-stairs--Guy was still too lame to
walk without assistance. I heard the poor lad's fretful tones, and the
soothing, cheerful voice that answered them. "Verily," thought I, "if,
since he must fall in love, Guy had only fixed his ideal standard of
womanhood a little nearer home--if he had only chosen for his wife a
woman a little more like his mother!" But I suppose that would have
been expecting impossibilities.

Well, he had been refused!--our Guy, whom we all would have imagined
ir