Melmotte would accept
in return for his money a title so modest as that of her son, how
glorious should her son be to her in spite of his indifference!

'I heard him leave the house before the Melmottes went,' said
Henrietta, when the mother spoke of going up to her son's bedroom.

'He might have stayed to-night. Do you think he asked her?'

'How can I say, mamma?'

'I should have thought you would have been anxious about your brother.
I feel sure he did,--and that she accepted him.'

'If so I hope he will be good to her. I hope he loves her.'

'Why shouldn't he love her as well as any one else? A girl need not be
odious because she has money. There is nothing disagreeable about
her.'

'No,--nothing disagreeable. I do not know that she is especially
attractive.'

'Who is? I don't see anybody specially attractive. It seems to me you
are quite indifferent about Felix.'

'Do not say that, mamma.'

'Yes you are. You don't understand all that he might be with this
girl's fortune, and what he must be unless he gets money by marriage.
He is eating us both up.'

'I wouldn't let him do that, mamma.'

'It's all very well to say that, but I have some heart. I love him. I
could not see him starve. Think what he might be with L20,000 a-year!'

'If he is to marry for that only, I cannot think that they will be
happy.'

'You had better go to bed, Henrietta. You never say a word to comfort
me in all my troubles.'

Then Henrietta went to bed, and Lady Carbury absolutely sat up the
whole night waiting for her son, in order that she might hear his
tidings. She went up to her room, disembarrassed herself of her
finery, and wrapped herself in a white dressing-gown. As she sat
opposite to her glass, relieving her head from its garniture of false
hair, she acknowledged to herself that age was coming on her. She
could hide the unwelcome approach by art,--hide it more completely than
can most women of her age; but, there it was, stealing on her with
short grey hairs over her ears and around her temples, with little
wrinkles round her eyes easily concealed by objectionable cosmetics,
and a look of weariness round the mouth which could only be removed by
that self-assertion of herself which practice had made always possible
to her in company, though it now so frequently deserted her when she
was alone.

But she was not a woman to be unhappy because she was growing old. Her
happiness, like that of most of us, was ever in the