, Mr. Mortimer?"

There was no undue stress on the words "put us off," but they suggested
an idea to John that was new to him, and he would have felt called upon
to act upon them, and renew the invitation, if Emily had not answered
just as if she had heard not a syllable.

"We shall be sorry to miss you, John, when we come, but no doubt the
children will be at home, and the girls."

"Yes," said John, slipping into this arrangement so easily, that how
little he cared about her visit ought to have been at once made plain to
Justina. "Oh yes, and they will be so proud to entertain you. I hope you
will honour them, as was intended, by coming to lunch."

"Yes, to be sure," Emily answered with readiness. "I hope the auriculas
will not have begun to fade, they are Miss Fairbairn's favourite
flower."

Then, to the intense mortification of Justina, John changed the subject,
as if it had been one of no moment to him. "I have been over to
Wigfield-house this afternoon to pay my respects to Mrs. Brandon and her
boy."

"You found them well, I know, for we were there this morning."

"Perfectly well," said John, and he laughed. "Giles was marching about
in the garden with that astonishing infant lying flat on his arm, and
with its long robes dangling down. Dorothea (come out, I was told, for
the first time) was walking beside him, and looking like a girl of
sixteen. I believe when I approached they were discussing to what
calling in life they would bring up the youngster. I was desired to
remark his uncommon likeness to his father; told that he was considered
a very fine child, and I should have had the privilege of looking at his
little downy black head, but his mother decided not to accord it, lest
he should take cold."

"And so you laugh at her maternal folly," said Justina smiling, but not
displeased at what sounded like disparagement of an attractive young
woman.

"I laugh at it?--yes! but as a man who feels that it is the one lovely
folly of the world. Who could bear to think of all that childhood
demands of womanhood, if he did not bear in mind the sweet delusive
glamour that washes every woman's eyes ere she catches sight of the
small mortal sent to be her charge."

Then Justina, who had found a few moments for recovering herself and
deciding how to act, took the conversation again into her own hands, and
very soon, in spite of Emily, who did not dare to interfere again, John
Mortimer was brought quite naturally a